Tips From The Drivers

Gentle delivery advice from Annette, Simon, Bob, Scott and Carrie.

• The delivery slip should be placed inside the front cover of the material with the top 2-3 inches sticking out.
• Don’t try to band huge stacks of books together. Usually 3-4 books of the same size are all you can safely and securely band together with one routing slip.
• Put two bands on stacks of more than one book, one going each direction. It is best to band like sized books together.
• For example, don’t band a large format picture book with a tiny young adult paperback, these will likely slide apart.
• Don’t apply rubber bands too tightly. A rubber band that constricts a paperback book can tear through a paper cover or leave marks on the edges of the pages.
• Use strong rubber bands—not the little skinny ones.
• When sending boxes, make sure they are strong and secure. Tape the boxes around the sides and bottoms to reinforce as needed.
• Don’t use weak or flimsy boxes.
• Crates should have more than 1 or 2 items in them. Often drivers make more trips in and out of the buildings with crates that are not full.
• Stack books neatly into crates, two flat stacks, side by side is best when possible. When your books are placed haphazardly into crates, it makes them harder to sort.
• Please don’t throw books into crates. Protect your material.
• Plastic A/V cases (example: CD jewel cases) can crack easily on delivery, especially when banded with material of other sizes or put on the bottom of crates.
• Take special care when putting a/v on delivery. Use padded envelopes for some of this material when possible.
• Remember that the crates are stacked on hand trucks to be wheeled in and out of your library. Don’t overfill crates. Items will be smashed if overfull crates are stacked.
• Crates are for delivery—only for delivery. Please do not use crates in your library/branch to sort other items, as bins for story hour supplies or other things.
• Fill out delivery slips and routing envelopes completely and fully.
• Don’t leave the From space blank on delivery slips and routing envelopes. Libraries need to know where the item came from sometimes.
• Please do NOT attempt to send via delivery:
  • Extremely fragile items
  • Chemicals
  • Liquids
  • Things that could be easily affected by extreme temperatures
  • Electronic equipment
  • Personal items (delivery is not for personal use, but library use only)