'News zooms through the machinery of the U.S. Postal Service. Thursday, the Virginian-Pilot newspaper carried Debbie Messina's report on a terrific program at the Hampton Roads, Va., post office. For a decade, it has donated undeliverable books to libraries, a veterans hospital, churches and homeless shelters.
Tuesday, the Hampton Roads program was toast.'
Tacoma News Tribune
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Local post office ordered to halt book-donation program
Bob Harrison, of the Horace C. Downing branch library in Norfolk, sorts through donated books in January. STEVE EARLEY / THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
By DEBBIE MESSINA, The Virginian-Pilot
© February 3, 2005 | Last updated 1:27 AM Feb. 3
After learning of the local post office’s initiative to donate undeliverable books to libraries and other organizations, the U.S. Postal Service on Wednesday sent a nationwide directive ending such programs.
A postal spokesman in Baltimore said the Hampton Roads regional office misinterpreted the rules on disposing of undeliverable books. Undeliverable mail has incorrect addresses or has been refused by someone at the address.
Periodicals, publications, merchandise and product samples may be donated, said spokesman Bob Novak. But books and music recordings must be mailed to one of three sites across the United States to be auctioned , he said.
“We’re sorry for the confusion,” Novak said. The libraries and other groups “mistakenly received material that they shouldn’t have been receiving.”
Librarians in Hampton Roads, who have put thousands of best-sellers on their shelves thanks to the postal program, are disappointed.
“We are just sick,” said Booker Bates , Virginia Beach Public Library’s acquisition supervisor.
“Our customers will go from a one-month wait back to a six-month wait for popular titles.
“It doesn’t make sense. The books can’t benefit nonprofit agencies, but the post office can sell them. This is going to really hit us in the face.”
The effect will ripple through other organizations. Books the libraries couldn’t use were sent to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and to those deployed on ships.
The books help stock the community center library in Bayview on the Eastern Shore, one of the state’s poorest communities. They went to shelters and veteran’s hospitals.
Hampton Roads is not the first to run afoul of the rules. A donation program in Tacoma, Wash., was shut down in the fall. There, the donations saved the post office $3,000 a month in landfill fees, The News Tribune in Tacoma reported.
“If we’re doing it and Tacoma was doing it, I guarantee others are doing it, too,” said Hervey Trimyer, a spokesman for the Hampton Roads post office.
At least one postal official has heard of other programs in Virginia. A Virginia Beach librarian said that a small library where she once worked also received undeliverable books.
The 503-page Postal Operations Manual sets the rules for donating undeliverable periodicals, publications, merchandise and product samples in one section and later describes how to handle books and music.
Trimyer surmised that local officials found the first reference and assumed that it covered books.
“There’s nothing underhanded about what the people were doing – they thought it was right,” Trimyer said.
Bates wondered, “If a book’s not a publication, what is it?”
The Hampton Roads donation program was started by Deborah Gilliam , the manager of mail-forwarding operations, after she arrived nearly two years ago.
It was endorsed by local postal officials based on their reading of the operations manual.
Gilliam said when she arrived in Hampton Roads, the books were being thrown in the trash.
“I thought we were doing something good – we’re getting books to people who can really use them,” Gilliam said. “Oh my, this is sad.”
Novak said undeliverable books should never have been trashed. He said they should be sent to a mail-recovery center in Atlanta, where they’re auctioned to recover costs associated with their handling.
He could not provide information about the sales, including how many books are sold, how much money is raised or whether it’s enough to cover the expenses of shipping and conducting the sales.
Novak said the post office sells the books and music because they’re more valuable than magazines, newspapers and samples of toothpaste, detergent and diapers.
Postal headquarters learned of the Hampton Roads donations from a feature story that ran last month in The Virginian-Pilot. That story was widely disseminated in Tacoma, where the post office received hundreds of phone calls and letters about the suspension of the program there.
Novak admitted the post office does not know how many branches are donating books.
“That’s the reason our communication went out nationwide,” he said.
“All our post offices are going to have to act according to the rules and regulations.”
Reach Debbie Messina at 446-2588 or debbie.messina@pilotonline.com
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