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

[Document Delivery]

We invoice when the book is loaned three months without renewals. I've often sent invoices out, had them go unpaid, and then had the book come back. On several occasions they didn't pay because they were still trying to get the book back, which they did. On two occasions we received a check and the book. I find it helps to send monthly invoices and to follow up with phone calls. We don't have collection fees, and I think ILL requests are supposed to be completed in six months (fees paid, etc.) Ed.

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From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org on behalf of Joe Ellison
Sent: Fri 9/28/2007 5:04 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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