I was thinking that it would be handy if the requestor could pay for and request delivery conformation.  that would make things nice and handy :) 

Tracking (what used to be called Delivery Confrmation) is optional on packages here.

But if you purchase it from this website, PBS guarantees that as a sender, you will receive your credit, even if the book is lost or mis-delivered. (Without Tracking, if the book is lost or mis-delivered, the requestor eventually gets their credit back and the sender gets nothing).

So, it's really "sender credit insurance". That's why it doesn't really make sense for requestors to pay for it.

When I first joined, I used Tracking from the site because I wasn't sure if the website really worked. But after a few months, I realized that Tracking is very expensive compared to the very small numbers of books that actually don't get marked received. Four years later, I've mailed about 1200 books out, most without Tracking, and only 2  went lost and I didn't get the credit for them.

I would have paid about $500 for the Tracking on all of those books, had I continued to use Tracking. When you put that against the (maybe) $16 dollars I have lost in book value (or the $5 I have lost in credit value) ... you can see why, if you mail out a lot of books, it may not make financial sense to use Tracking.

Other senders like it because then they don't have to worry about books being marked received. Or because it's more convenient for them.

So, that's why it's optional!

Hmmm, I just check my mailbox.  Although I see your point ... when things don't arrive for some reason it might be nice to be able to check if they were actually mailed.

It's not really much of a problem with this website, though ... I don't find that many books are lost in the mail at all.

If you have post office problems that prevent you from receiving mail reliably, you'll need to work on sorting that out, or your PBS account could be put in jeopardy -- reliable mail access is a requirement.  I lived in West Virigina myself for years (Morgantown) and never had any problems.  Some folks in this situation find post office boxes to be helpful.  Delivery confirmation is just that -- it tells you the thing has been delivered; it isn't intended to be a tracking sort of system the way UPS and other parcel services offer.

Hey, don't diss on WV! 

I live in the Eastern Panhandle, and with the exception of some of the clerks and issues with the POS, I have nothing but superlatives for the USPS here.

A bit west of Charles Town, Shannon. We've been here almost 9 years, now.

If you really feel the need for your PBS books to have tracking, you could put a Requestor Condition (RC)  that tracking must be used on books sent to you.  You may have lots of turn downs because people don't want the added expense.

or I could offer to send the sender pbs money to add tracking :) 

I am pretty sure you aren't allowed to do that...PBS rules.

"A friend of mine just bought a house in downtown Charlestown"

While we have a Charles Town ZIP code, we're actually closer to Summit Point (and the auto raceway, where this weekend they're holding the 20th Jefferson 500). We moved here in 2004 and while we've had some adjusting, we love it.

Shannon/Sue: I'm not sure that's explicitly prohibited, but it may be a PBS Team interpretation. You *may* have to contact them directly, Shannon, to find out for sure. (FWIW, I find it hard sometimes to get information out of the Help Docs... especially when it's something 'fuzzy' like this.)