Over the past year, we have seen changes in shipping across our non-US print serials. We were dealing with added fees and shipments being held until vendors could figure out what new rules meant for them and their business interests. This led to late shipments and inconsistent costs. Late shipments means that claiming is harder and we may not be able to replace lost issues resulting in an incomplete run and a backlog in our binding process. Also while the base cost of serials comes from Collection Managers’ subject funds, our shipping and extra fees come from a separate line. This poses an interesting conundrum as we also initiated a serial review in this same year to help offset future budget cuts. When Collection Managers are looking at past and projected costs they aren’t seeing the full picture. Will their decisions be offset by increasing fees? We will look at cost data and compare past years, along with providing examples of how we worked through these roadblocks with vendors and how we communicated with Collection Managers so they have the information they need to make the right choices for the library and our users.
