It could cost the Carter County Imagination Library a little more money to have non-deliverable books returned from the post office.
Elizabethton Carter County Public Library Children’s Librarian Ashlee Williams told the group’s board that the state Governor’s Books From Birth Foundation told her the CCIL could not use the library endorsement from the post office to get a cheaper return postage rate on larger books.
She said it was explained to her that since the books were sent out from a non-profit agency, using the library endorsement was not allowed.
CCIL board member and Elizabethton Postmaster Susie Whittington said she would call the appropriate departments to see what she could find out.
Member Joyce White said the board would have to look at other options to get the names of the children off the books so that they could be removed from the CCIL database. She said this is the only way that the CCIL could get that information, because it was not provided by the change of address data.
The CCIL has been paying to receive returned books for more than four months, a process the board agreed to try for six months. Last month, board members had to appropriate an additional $300 into the account, which was started with an anonymous $500 donation but had dwindled to $72.
Williams said the account now has $307 to last the remaining month-and-a-half of the six-month trial period.
White said the move to receive the books was costing the CCIL money, but they would need to explore options to get that information on children who no longer lived in Carter County and did not submit a change of address form to the CCIL.
“If we can find a way to get this cheaper, then we should do it,” White said. “Right now, we only break even if the child has six months or more left in the Imagination Library.”
The library endorsement allowed the CCIL to receive a cheaper returned postage rate on heavier books. With the endorsement, the post office could choose the cheaper rate of either first-class rate or the library rate.
The CCIL also started planning its Teachers Hall of Fame dinner. The dinner will be held either April 11 or 25. Nominations will be received from Jan. 4, 2015, until March 15.