ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 8, Number 85 August 26, 1999 In this issue: Note: The following article is reprinted with permission from the August 23, 1999 Alliance Report, the newsletter of the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers. The outline was produced by Patricia Bennett of the United States Postal Service Mail Preparation and Standards. For more information, see the ALA Washington Office issue brief, Library Postal Rate, at http://www.ala.org/washoff/postal.pdf Library Rates: Who Can Use Them and When Library Mail is a Standard Mail (B) subclass for items on loan from or exchanged between academic institutions, public libraries, museums, and other authorized organizations. Library rates are attractive for mailing books, but the rates don't apply to all books, mailers, recipients, or purposes. To help you identify whether your mailing might be eligible, here's a list that shows exactly who can be involved in the transaction. Mail pieces may be mailed at the Library Mail rate when sent between: -- Schools, colleges, universities, public libraries, museums, herbariums, and nonprofit religious, educational, scientific, and philanthropic (charitable) organizations. -- Any one of the organizations mentioned above and an individual who has no financial interest in the sale, promotion, or distribution of the materials. -- Any one of those organizations and a publisher if the organization is buying these materials and is having them delivered to itself. The eligible materials include books that contain only reading matter, scholarly bibliographies, or reading matter with blank spaces for notations. The materials may not contain advertising except for occasional announcements of books. Other materials include printed music, bound academic theses, periodicals, sound recordings, other library materials, museum materials, specimens, collections, teaching aids, printed matter, and materials for furthering the educational work and interests of museums and herbariums. The materials listed below may be mailed at the Library Mail rate when they're sent to or from schools, colleges, universities, public libraries, museums, and herbariums and to or from nonprofit religious, educational, scientific, philanthropic, agricultural, labor, veterans', or fraternal organizations: --16-millimeter or narrower width films, filmstrips, transparencies, slides, and microfilms in final form for viewing. -- Sound recordings. -- Museum materials. -- Scientific or mathematical kits, instruments, or other devices. -- Catalogs of books, printed music, bound theses, or periodicals. For more information on Library Mail, you can refer to section E630.5.0 of the Domestic Mail Manual. Example: Say the hypothetical ABC Publishing House specializes in educational materials, like encyclopedias. They want to send Main Street High School the first two books of the set (at the Library Mail rate), hoping the school will buy the entire set. The problem is that these samples don't qualify for the Library Mail rate because the publisher is promoting the books for profit. The samples can be sent as Special Standard Mail. But if Main Street High School purchases the set, the publisher can then send the entire set at the Library Mail rate because the school is buying them for its own educational purposes. ****** ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff. Editor: Lynne E. Bradley; Managing Editor: Deirdre Herman; Contributors: Sally Benson, Mary Costabile, Peter Kaplan, Carrie Russell, Saundra Shirley, Claudette Tennant and Rick Weingarten.