Maine Librarians Forced to Implement Patchwork Delivery System

Where are those delivery vans?

Link to July 17 Portland Press Herald article, "Book swapping slows to crawl at libraries". (Thanks to David Weinhold for the heads-up.)

Excerpt: Librarians are shuttling books around Maine in the trunks of their cars this week, after the loss of a delivery service that supports the statewide interlibrary loan program.

The courier hired to move books between libraries, NCS Logistics of Scarborough, backed out of its contract Monday, dealing a blow to a program that gives patrons at the state's smallest depositories access to titles from some of its largest.

The move sent staffers at about 140 public and private libraries scrambling to find ways to maintain the flow of books. Some have resorted to lugging books from one library to another on their own.

I'll be flying into Portland on Friday, August 14, then driving to Fredericton, New Brunswick, via I-95. Family vacation. Unfortunately, we won't have time to make anything but the standard pit stops.