Yes, I’ve been on vacation for the past two weeks – was actually completely offline for at least a week, which is the longest I’ve gone for 5 years – whew! It really wasn’t so bad 🙂
Here’s some document delivery-related news from the Canadian Library Association – there’s been some worry that we were going to lose our library book rate in the near future, but now there’s this:
On Friday, July 22, 2005 Minister of National Revenue John McCallum announced
the Library Mail Rate would be extended past its scheduled March 31, 2006
expiry. This followed extensive media coverage on Canada Post’s decision
to end the Rate. Canada Post had assured CLA that it would not act unilaterally
to end the Program but there had been no guarantees of continuity.CLA President Barbara Clubb is pleased with the Minister’s announcement but noted there are no details on what the Rate will be, how it will be set, nor how the Program will be funded.
A series of postings are available on the CLA Web site:
- http://www.cla.ca/issues/lmr_update_july_22_2005_2.htm
- http://www.cla.ca/issues/lmr_update_july_22_2005.htm
- http://www.cla.ca/issues/lbr_update_july_20_2005.htm
Between July 19 and 22, CLA Executive Director Don Butcher did 18 interviews on the Book Rate and its impact on library users with local, regional and national media from coast-to-coast, including CBC Radio, the Globe and Mail, and the Canwest group of
newspapers.CLA and ASTED are continuing to work with Canada Post on the development of an online shipping tool for the Book Rate.