Our main campus just cost my library $4,000!

[thewayne]

*sigh*

We have a courier service. We mainly use it for moving books back and forth with main campus that students request from each other between our campuses and also a couple of other community college campuses in Las Cruces. The cool thing about it is that students can request books without librarian help through the system. Also, when I send books out via interlibrary loan (ILL), some remote libraries - both public and university - sometimes return them via the courier network.

Late Friday I get an email from the courier company. Usually there's two types I get from them, actual correspondence and "buy courses from us" blather. This was different, it named a library that was no longer receiving service from them. The email had a list of other libraries, and I idly scanned the list, thinking it was a list of libraries in our region that were subscribers and noticed that main campus was on the list but we weren't.

Then I re-read the header. No longer receiving service from the courier.

The bastards had cancelled the courier service without telling us their plans.

We renewed our service for the next year LITERALLY last week to the tune of THIRTY EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS.

Farking bastiches!

95%+ of our courier traffic is back and forth to main campus and the community colleges in Las Cruces! They have a huge budget, both for people and everything else. We have 2.5 people plus two student workers. It would have been nice to have an extra $3800 to spend on other things.

This is going to complicate my ILL job as now I'm going to have to dig in to requests more deeply and if they are on the courier network, it's going out via courier rather than USPS to make sure we use the courier as much as possible before we cancel it next year.

AND now, whenever a student at another campus requests a book, that's another thing I'm going to have to pack up to mail via the post office, which takes a good 20 minutes compared to printing a slip, scanning it, and throwing it into a courier bag.

*sigh*

Farking bastiches!

Comments

[dewline]

Oh bloody Hell.

[thewayne]

Yeah.  Dat.

[armiphlage]

Wow - any chance for a refund, or are they just keeping the money?

[thewayne]

Probably no chance.  Contracts and all that, you're familiar there.  We were thinking about going to once a week pickup from twice a week, next year we're going to none a week.  My director has a meeting with their director in November and will have some choice words, I think she should contact them much sooner.

[starwatcher]

Yeah, I was going to ask about a refund, too. I don't know how contracts work -- but if they're not providing the service, that certainly sounds like 'breach of contract' to me, or 'theft of services', or something underhanded. I think your director should raise holy hell right now. I mean... we ordinary folks don't get paid if we don't do the work; there's no reason these folks should.

[ndrosen]

It does seem to me that you could request a refund; there may be some nasty clause in a contract saying they can quit any time without returning your money, but if not, you would appear to have case.

[thewayne]

My boss is pretty young - mid 20s - and very non-confrontational.  I can't see her asking for it.  There might be a 30 day window that the contract could be changed, if we could change the pickup to once a week and claw back part of the contract that at least would be an improvement.  But I doubt we could cancel it at this point and get all the money back.

[thewayne]

The courier service will be providing a service of a driver coming twice a week: if no one sends us bags and we don't have anything outbound, it's not their fault - the service is being provided.  But we know that main campus was using that service quite heavily, that's the part that I can't figure out - they sent books all over the place!  The add'l time required to package up a book to mail it, plus the postage, I don't think they're going to save money.  I know WE will save money over paying for the courier considering the number of books we move, but it will be more hassle for me.

[kathmandu]

I'm kind of surprised courier/delivery service isn't contracted on a whole-university basis, since network connectivity and efficiency is the main point.

[thewayne]

Some library services are university-wide as part of a consortium agreement, other services are contracted on a per-library basis.  For example, research databases since each campus has different curriculum, we subscribe to different databases and restrict access to our personal student populations.  Since this courier is based out of El Paso, they only service Las Cruces and Alamogordo, they don't get up to Grants (Northern NM) or Carlsbad (Eastern and not easily reached via highway), so it doesn't work well.  I believe we're also the oldest branch campus, we're definitely the largest library of the branches.  So the others, and now us, have always used the post office for moving books around.

[mtbc]

I'm confused. You paid $3,800 and won't be receiving service. What did you actually pay for?

[thewayne]

We will receive service, in that a courier driver will come twice a week to see if we have anything outbound and bring us any bags that other libraries will send us.  But it won't be to/from our main NMSU library, it'll be from the few libraries that we send books to from interlibrary loan who use the same courier network to return them. But there's no doubt the number of courier bags being transferred, never terribly high, is going to drop precipitously.

[mtbc]

Aha. Definitely worth justified feedback to management/procurement that it really helps to keep stakeholders in the loop!

[bibliofile]

If only.

[moxie_man]

If your college is as slow to pay bills as ours, you might be able to cancel payment before it occurs. Ours sits on these for 30 days (unless you mark the invoice otherwise) before making payment.

[thewayne]

Now that's an interesting point.

[disneydream06]

I would send the courier bill to the main campus. :o :o :o
Hugs, Jon

[silveradept]

The left hand had no idea it was trying to eat the right foot, it seems. Hopefully you can get the money back or at least get the main campus back on the routes.

[acelightning73]

Can you cancel the payment and demand a refund?

[thewayne]

Doubtful.  My boss said she agreed to the contract, and that seals the deal regardless of whether or not the school has sent payment for the forthcoming year.  Personally I think the payment seals the deal, but she's the boss.

[acelightning73]

As someone else just said, put a stop on the payment. I tried to send flowers to the funeral of my daughter-in-law's uncle, in a different part of the USA. I used 1-800-flowers, because I have sent funeral flowers that way before. I found the perfect floral arrangement for the dearly departed, and ordered it online. It never got sent - the funeral home never got it, and my son said he looked at all the flowers, and didn't see what I'd sent. My husband called the credit card company and put a stop on the payment.