---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 09:35:47 -0600
From: Diane Neumeister <DNEUMEIS@LORAS.EDU>
Subject: Giving thanks for exceptional service after a minor disaster

On the eve of the Thanksgiving holidays, I would like to publicly extend
my thanks for some superb customer service to Patricia Coffin at Heritage
Microfilm and especially to Bob Mottice at UMI/Bell & Howell for their
response to a minor disaster a few weeks ago.

During the last week of October, the library staff here had an experience
that I sincerely hope will never be repeated: someone placed a dead cat in
a storage box that was a little over half full of reels of microfilm and
then put the box back on the shelf in the stacks.  We don't know how long
the cat was there, but patrons and library staff began complaining about a
"sewer gas" odor on the Friday before Halloween. Unfortunately, the
college maintenance department and the library staff didn't locate the
source of the increasingly unpleasant odor until Monday morning.

As the Serials Assistant, I got custody of the seven truly disgusting
reels of microfilm that had been in the box with the cat plus 17
additional reels from two neighboring storage boxes that smelled bad but
were mild by comparison to those first seven reels.  It was my
responsibility to either clean and deodorize the reels or to replace them.
After a number of phone calls and email messages, I received offers of
assistance from two microfilm vendors.

Patricia Coffin at Heritage Microfilm (where we had bought some of the
microfilm) provided free replacement boxes plus packets of a filtering
material to place in the individual microfilm boxes. The packets arrived
the day after I called and two days of fresh air (outside in a stiff
breeze!), some replacement boxes and a few days with those micro-filter
packets inside the new boxes solved the odor problem for all 17 of the
mildly affected reels!

After I explained my problem with the seven severely affected reels to a
customer service representative at UMI/Bell & Howell (where we had
purchased those reels), she referred me to Bob Mottice, photographic
engineer and Director of Technology and Quality Control, who promptly
volunteered to clean the seven reels free of charge.  This was rather
brave of him as the odor was so strong that, even after throwing away the
boxes, I had to use 10 sealed layers of plastic garbage bags to contain
the odor when I packed the reels for shipping.

>From a phone conversation that we had after he received the reels, I know
that Mr. Mottice handled the unpleasant task of cleaning that microfilm
personally. Talk about service "above and beyond the call of duty!" He did
a wonderful job: when the cleaned reels arrived in the mail a few days
ago, they were in brand new, properly-labeled boxes and not a trace of the
odor remained!

My sincere thanks on behalf of the staff of the Wahlert Memorial Library
to Patricia Coffin at Heritage Microfilm and especially to Bob Mottice at
UMI/Bell & Howell.

Diane Neumeister
Serials Asst.
Wahlert Memorial Library
Loras College, Dubuque, IA
dneumeis@loras.edu