[Moving Mountains] delivery pricing options

[Anne Donohue/mlc]

Hi, all, my name is Anne Donohue and the I'm the coordinator of statewide
delivery in Michigan. I was unable to attend the Moving Mountains
Symposium, but I was very grateful to see the presentations available on
the web. I also found this discussion list, so I thought I would pose the
latest dilemma we're facing to find out if anyone else has figured out the
best way to handle this. Our system operates by the libraries paying for
delivery themselves.

In Michigan we have three areas of the state that have shared regional
catalogs among their members. Those regions also have their own delivery
services. The headquarters of each region is a central drop site for the
statewide delivery service. The regional catalogs allow for holds to be
placed. That means there is an enormous amount of materials moving among
the members of each region.

One of the regions recently decided to have their members be direct stops
on the statewide delivery service, rather than running their own service
and linking to the statewide system. There are 26 libraries in this region.
Those 26 libraries move as much material as the rest of the state put
together.

This has put a tremendous strain on our courier. We contract with a
commercial company that piggybacks the library deliveries with other things
they do, such as dental supplies, beauty supplies, office supplies, etc.
They can handle this workload, but not at the price the rest of the state
currently pays.

So, the philosophical question we're facing is whether to increase the
price across the board to all libraries or should the high volume sites
(the other two regional catalogs are also considering joining the statewide
service) pay a surcharge?

How do you structure pricing so it's fair to the libraries and to the
courier? We certainly don't want to run them out of business.

Thanks.

anne

Anne Donohue
MeL Delivery Coordinator
Michigan Library Consortium
800-530-9019, ext. 142
MLC - Partnerships. Solutions. Excellence.