[ILL-L] USPS Shipping Assistant?

[Joe Ellison]

I use it for the times when I have to ship something domestic Priority and
for all international shipments. It is now the only way to generate Priority
labels electronically without paying for the postage online. Since all our
mail is metered through the university's mail services division, I can't put
postage on the labels when I generate them. If you use either the online
label generation or the shipping assistant, online tracking is free for
priority shipments. The USPS's notion of tracking is considerably less
comprehensive than UPS or Fedex, since it consists solely of after-the-fact
reporting of delivery, but it's better than no tracking at all. It's great
for international shipments, since it also generates the necessary customs
documents. 

 

The only caveats I can offer are that 1) the Shipping Assistant requires
administrative access on your computer to install, and 2) if an update is
available, the assistant won't run until the update is installed, again
requiring administrative access. This is a problem here, where users are not
normally granted administrative access, but obviously other IT departments
may well have decided to allow admin access to all users.

 

Joe Ellison

Document Delivery and Digital Initiatives Assistant

Transportation Library, Northwestern Univ Library (OCLC = JCR)

1970 Campus Dr, Evanston, IL 60208-2300

voice: 847-491-8600, fax: 847-491-8601

j-ellison at northwestern.edu

http://www.library.northwestern.edu/transportation/

 

From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org]
On Behalf Of Leslie Starasta
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 2:00 PM
To: 'Interlibrary Loan Listserv'
Subject: [ILL-L] USPS Shipping Assistant?

 

Dear fellow ILL-ers,

                I was wondering if anyone is using or has tried the USPS
Shipping Assistant (http://www.usps.com/shippingassistant
<http://www.usps.com/shippingassistant/welcome.htm?from=CNS&page=shippingass
istant> I/welcome.htm?from=CNS&page=shippingassistant) for printing shipping
labels?  My assistants really enjoy being able to print shipping labels and
book straps directly through WorldCat as we don't have ILLIAD or CLIO, but
my understanding is the Shipping Assistant would also provide information
for delivery confirmation (for a modest fee of course).  I'm wondering if
anyone else has used this and can give any feedback on using it.  I'm
particularly interested in the delivery confirmation aspect as  I have a
bill for a never received book we returned to another library and just
received word that two books sent to another library never arrived.  :-(

 

Leslie

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