Postage--boon or bane: an evaluation of one library's MLA exchange transactions.
An analysis of MLA Exchange material shipped as well as received is presented. It was found that, of 10,382 items shipped during a twelve-month period to 588 libraries, 332 of these mailings, or 56 percent, were sent for ten cents or less, at a total of $24.80 for postage, an average of $6.20 per exchange list. Similarly, a six-month log of items received by the library shows that 55 percent of these mailings was sent to the library for ten cents or less. The results of this study suggest that the waiving of small fees could eliminate more than half of the donor library's record keeping on postal reimbursements and that it could cut the receiving library's actual reimbursement cost, which is shown to reach 250 percent.
D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D007993:Libraries, Medical; D011177:Postal Service