[ILL-L] Unpaid invoices--when to give up?

[GayLynn Burchett]

We send out lost invoices which include replacement charges plus $10
processing fee. If the patron returns the book, we waive the processing
fee. We are just glad to get the item back. If they don't repond to the
notices or return the book, we just "expire" their borrowing privileges
& put a note in their account so that if they try to borrow again our
system will alert us.

GayLynn J Burchett >^..^<
..,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-
Systems Librarian 
Avera McKennan Library-MKE 
800 E 21st St. PO Box 5045 
Sioux Falls SD 57117-5045 
phone: 605-322-8476 
fax: 605-322-8480 


-----Original Message-----
From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Joe Ellison
Sent: Friday, September 28, 2007 4:04 PM
To: ill-l at webjunction.org
Subject: [ILL-L] Unpaid invoices--when to give up?

It's Friday, & it's the end of the month, so I'm doing my monthly 
past due notices for unpaid invoices. There are very few, thanks to 
IFM, but there are still some. My question here concerns lost book 
invoices. I generally don't issue a lost book invoice without first 
having issued several overdue notices, and then contacting the 
borrowing institution by phone or email. There are, however, 
instances in which I've been unable to contact anyone, and issue the 
invoice without such prior contact. In no case do I issue a lost book 
invoice until a book is at least a month overdue unless specifically 
requested to do so by the borrower. In my experience, if a lost book 
invoice is going to result in the return of the book, it takes at 
least another month to get the book back, making the invoice 
technically past due by the time the book is returned.

Our lost book invoices consist of three sets of fees: the replacement 
cost of the book(s), collection costs of $10.00 per item, and 
processing costs of $10.00 per item. One of the local policies by 
which I'm constrained is that, once a lost book invoice has been 
issued, the collection fees are due _even if the book is returned_. 
Our invoices are all worded to make this obvious; under the line for 
collection costs is text in bold stating "This amount is due even if 
book(s) are returned." Now, I know that there are some libraries that 
simply won't pay these fees, nor pass them on to their patrons, as a 
matter of policy. When I'm aware of such a policy, I add the 
collection and processing fees to the replacement cost rather than 
itemizing the invoice, and write off any hope of getting the 
collection fee paid on books that are returned. It seems, however, 
that even those institutions that don't have such a stated policy are 
often unwilling to contact their patron and collect the collection 
fee, nor are they willing to pay it out their own budget, making it 
in general uncollectable. In some cases this happens even after I've 
spoken with someone from the borrowing institution by phone and been 
assured that all parts of the invoice would be honored, including the 
collection fee on books that are eventually returned.

I'm sitting here looking at two invoices for such fees, one from 
September 2006, for which I've already sent four past due notices, 
and the other from March 2007, for which I've already sent two 
notices. On the one hand, I've done more than $10 worth of work on 
each of them already, first trying to get the books back, and then 
sending invoices and past due notices, and should give it up for 
lost. On the other hand, there's the principle of the thing. It has, 
in fact, cost time, which means money, sending overdue notices, 
contacting the borrowing institutions, determining that the books had 
truly not been returned, even several months after their due date, 
then determining the replacement cost, generating and sending the 
invoices, etc. So, I'm throwing the question out to the list. Do you 
find collection fees useful? If your institution charges a separate 
collection fee that is due regardless of whether the book is 
returned, at what point do you simply write off unpaid invoices for 
collection fees only? If you had such a collection fee and dropped 
it, how much effort was it to make the change? Did you drop it for 
all ILL/Document Delivery? Keep it for all individual borrowers (if 
you lend to individuals outside of your institution, which we do), 
but drop it for loans between libraries? I know I won't be able to 
effect any changes in policy for local users, but am considering the 
arguments for dropping the collection fee on returned items for 
ILL/Document Delivery.


Joe Ellison
Document Delivery Assistant, Transportation Library (OCLC symbol JCR)
Northwestern University Library, 1970 Campus Dr.
Evanston, IL  60208-2300
phone: (847)491-8600, fax: (847)491-8601
j-ellison at northwestern.edu
ARIEL: 129.105.19.35 or staff019035.library.northwestern.edu
Visit the Transportation Library: 
http://www.library.northwestern.edu/transportation 


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