I have had this problem once or twice, but not recently.  Here is what I
would do:

If you were invoiced for the volumes and already paid for them, ask them to
credit your account for the cost of binding the volumes.  I would try to
avoid holding back the entire invoice from payment.  Your binder should be
paid promptly for the volumes that were bound and returned correctly.

Let them know now that if they are not able to locate the volumes in
whatever you think is an acceptable period of time (maybe two months?), you
will need to replace the volumes and will expect them to reimburse you for
the replacement costs, including shipping.

If you replace the lost volumes with loose issues which you then choose to
bind, you should plan to pay for the binding of those issues.

Of course, it costs you time and work to replace the volumes, but I
wouldn't usually ask for reimbursement of the "pain & suffering" (i.e.
labor) costs.   But obviously, should this happen more than once, you'll
need to talk with your binder about the reasons and ramifications.

Hope this is of some help.

=========================================
Carol E. Eyler                                 ceyler@carleton.edu
Head of Technical Services
Carleton College Library                507-646-4268 voice
One North College St.                    507 646-4087 fax
Northfield, MN 55057
=========================================

--On Wednesday, February 01, 2006 3:46 PM -0600 "Pennington, Buddy D."
<penningtonb@UMKC.EDU> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Our binder (who shall remain nameless) has lost six periodical volumes
> from our Health Sciences Library.  They have been AWOL since December
> 13th (when they were supposed to be returned to us).
>
> I want to give them ample time to try to locate these volumes (which
> were likely shipped to another library) but I don't want to wait too
> long.
>
> If you have experienced this (it's a first for me!) can you let me know
> how you handled it?  Thanks.
>
> Buddy Pennington
> Serial Acquisitions Librarian
> UMKC - University Libraries
> 800 E. 51st Street
> Kansas City, MO  64110
> 816-235-1548
> 816-333-5584 (fax)
> penningtonb@umkc.edu
>
> UMKC University Libraries: Connecting Learners to the World of Knowledge
>
> www.umkc.edu/lib

=========================================
Carol E. Eyler                                 ceyler@carleton.edu
Head of Technical Services
Carleton College Library                507-646-4268 voice
One North College St.                    507 646-4087 fax
Northfield, MN 55057
=========================================