My boss is currently moving her mother and went to the USPS Web site to fill out a change of address form. Turns out that once you’ve filled in the form you have two options. One, print out the form and mail it in. Two, submit the change of address online. Here’s where the bafflement comes in. To submit the form online you’re charged $1.00.
On first glance this does seem a tad ridiculous. It probalby costs the postal service more to accept the mail-in method than the electronic method so charging for electronic submission seems a little backward. Most of us thought that the charge for electric submission is a way to reduce the potential for fraud in the system; preventing someone from running a bot that would change thousands of addresses. However, there are other ways to do this such as showing a graphic with a word in it that must be typed in in response. (Computers can’t do this.)
Still, the fact that you’ll be charged for online submission should be stated up front, on the first page of the form, not after you’ve already filled in the form.
Michael Sauers is the Director of Logan Library in Logan, UT. Prior to this he was one of the founding staff and Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
Unless otherwise stated, all opinions are my own and are not to be considered those of the City of Logan, UT.
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