Bookmarks are NOT a violation of media mail rules, as per the official USPS Domestic Mail Manual. Items may be included in media packages as long as they have a direct correlation to the primary media item being sent - and I would say bookmarks certainly have a direct correlation to books!

Susan, I just want to say that I understand and thank you for posting.

My postal clerks also have indicated that bookmarks are allowed under Media Mail.  As bound material, Avon cataloges are probably Media Mail also, although they violate PBS non advertising rules. 

So sorry Susan that you have been subjected to the 'peace, love, joy...or else' mantra, it really doesn't work for any belief system :-(

"bound material" isn't the deciding factor... no advertising of any kind is allowed to go Media Mail otherwise we'd be able to use it to mail used magazines to others.  We can't.

Ruth

Thanks Ruth, wasn't sure about that part :-)

I had personally debated this in the past, as I find things like seeing what someone else was using as a bookmark entertaining...  I'm weird like that though...  I had thought about using some cardstock and making some bookmarks (non religious of course...  just cute pictures of animals flowers, etc) on the computer and enclosing them in the books I mailed out just to make people smile....  I wasn't sure how this factored in to Media Mail rules, but since someone cleared that up in this thread... I may consider doing it afterall!!!

I've picked up thousands of books over the years at book sales, thrift stores, etc, and have found everything from airline tickets (lots of those), receipts (including one from a bookstore in Majorca), photos, postcards, and yes, money (including foreign currency)...

I'll usually keep the ephemera in the book (unless it's money or could be construed as offensive) because it's a record of its travels.  I hope the next reader will be as wowed as I am when i consider that the book I'm holding in my hand was read on a flight from Lagos to Kinshasa in 1987...(which is an actual ticket I found in a book).

I've received  several  bookmarks in PBS books. The first couple of times I contacted the sender to see if they wanted them back but both times they said that they included the bookmarks as an extra for me. One had a Bible passage the others had pictures of critters or generic happy reading sayings. I thought it was a sweet gesture. I was very aggravated though when I found several penthouse ads stuffed throughout one book.

I receive a lot of homemade bookmarks in the books I order. I keep thinking that I'm going ot start doing that and then I never get around to it and then I never get around to making any. 

Bren- Please come and tell my postal Office that. They still insist that bookmarks are not allowed in media mail even though other places do allow it. I guess its just how they read the rules.

I was very aggravated though when I found several penthouse ads stuffed throughout one book.

I would actually prefer those to religious bookmarks. At least someone in my house would get some use out of them... (I'm talking about my husband.)

Im in the Bookmark Train..( under Games here at PBS ) - and I just received one of the boxes of bookmarks yesterday.. There are so many! nice bookmarks on these trains..  Sometimes people send a bookmark with a book on purpose, as a Thank you for the book request.  :)

I've done the handmade bookmark thing, but I haven't in a while because it eats up my printer ink, which is very expensive.  Never anything religious or whatever.  Pretty pictures & red-hot stud muffins for my homegirls from the L&R forum.  Nobody ever complained and I never had a shipment get pulled by the PO for it.  My PO told me they were acceptable, so I stuck them in the books & sent them.  About the only negative thing - if you could call it that - is sending books & being out of bookmarks, and then somebody who knows I did that didn't get a bookmark:P

I personally think what's the all fuss?  If you don't like it, throw it away, regardless of if it was left unintentionally or included on purpose.  It's just a BOOKMARK.

Agreed.  I think things get over-analyzed to death around here sometimes.  It's not like it was porno.  It just a piece of paper, throw it in the trash.

I've gotten one of Kim's stud muffin bookmarks.  They are very nice.

 It is one thing to put a bookmark in for someone who you've been on a forum with.  You have a common interest that you have posted about. 

Getting a bookmark FIFO with either politics or religion just creeps me out.   And I'd report it. 

Technically, porno is just a piece of paper, too.  I'm offended by proselytizing bookmarks, others by naked body parts.  Tomatoes, tomahtos.  I really think it's best (unless you have otherwise communicated that such things are welcome) that controversial bookmarks should not be sent to strangers unasked for. 

edited because I can't spell

Yeah, I have to agree with Emily.  I wouldn't even want to press my muffins on someone who might be, er... dieting, shall we say?  The religious stuff wouldn't bother me, but I was brought up around the fire & brimstone preaching thing, and I'd be almost afraid I'd burn in hell if I made a fuss about anything of a religious nature:P  Nobody should receive unsolicited anything that offends them personally though.  We need to respect each other enough to think ahead of time that not everyone shares our beliefs, etc.  That's the true nature of Christianity anyway - Love thy neighbor & do unto others...  Having compassion & consideration for our fellow man, and not all of that scare the sinners into converting stuff.