From:   Donna Sue Yanney

I have recurring problems with some titles that I receive from fulfilment
centers.  My story:  I work for a fairly rural, small university.  We
have a four line address, name of institution, name of library, p.o. box
number, and city/state/zip.  Not as complicated as some of institutional
addresses I know.  Anyway, every renewal period, and sometimes just because,
the address on the labels of magazines that I receive from fulfilment
centers spontaneously changes for no apparent reason.  The city will
change from Prairie View, where the university has its p.o. box, to
Hempstead, which is the more central or regional or main (I don't really
understand the relationship) post office.  The Hempstead post office
looks at the magazine, looks for the p.o. box, and either 1)sends it on
to Prairie View, or 2)returns it as undeliverable to the publisher.  I
think it may have to do with who is working a particular day at the p.o.,
I don't know.  I do know that I have stuff on the shelves with the wrong
address.  Anyway, I start missing lots of issues or stuff stops coming
altogether and I give those good people in Boulder CO a call and try
to straighten it out.  Now here's the confusing part.  I took care of
a pile of these types of problems earlier in the week.  The first title
I called about was Library Journal.  I said I need to claim some issues and
change my address.  I said please change the city from Hempstead to
Prairie View.  She said I can't do that, you have a four line address, I can
only change the city if you have a three line address which line would
you like to delete?  And I don't mean to pick on Library Journal, I have
dealt with other fulfilment centers that had the same problem with the
address, LJ is just the most memorable.  I have been told that f.c.s use
software that was set up by the US post office and that, well it doesn't
make sense to me, something about four line addresses revert to the nearest
city with the mail postal hub.  Has anyone else heard of this?  Can
anyone explain it to me?

                 Donna Sue Yanney
                 Librarian I
                 PVAMU-Library
                 Phone: (409)857-2756
                <NOTPVDY@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU>