USPS Continues To Deliver Strong Service Performance

The U.S. Postal Service provided updated third quarter service performance data through the week of June 11th which shows steady performance improvement since the second quarter. Performance numbers below include the weeks of April 1 through June 11: *First-Class Mail: 87.60 percent of First-Class Mail delivered on-time against the USPS service standard, an over 9 percent increase over the second quarter. *Marketing Mail: 90.40 percent of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an over 5 percent increase over the second quarter. *Periodicals: 78.80 percent of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an over 7 percent increase over the second quarter.

The budget battle is a long way from over, but so far Congress appears not to share President Trump’s desire to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services, or the National Endowments for the Humanities, or the Arts. On Wednesday, the full House Appropriations Committee voted to approve FY2018 funding for libraries. By a 28-22 margin, the committee approved the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (LHHS) funding bill, which proposes roughly $231 million for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)—including $183.6 million for Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) programs, and $27 million for the Department of Education’s Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL) program—essentially at 2017 funding levels. A post on the ALA Washington Office’s District Dispatch e-newsletter, said the “successful and extremely important" full Appropriations Committee vote represents another "major milestone" in the ALA’s Fight for Libraries! Campaign—but acknowledged there are hurdles still to come. Click Read More below for more of the story.

Sales in the first nine months decreased by 2% in underlying terms primarily due to expected declines in North America in school assessment, school and higher education courseware, and the retirement of Learning Studio. Sales in US higher education courseware declined by 1% on an underlying basis, towards the upper half of our expected range. The negative impact of lower enrolments and attrition from growth in the secondary market driven by print rental was partially offset by the benefit of increased digital revenue and a year on year benefit from the reduction in returns from last year’s unprecedented levels, helped by the actions we announced at the beginning of the year. Underlying sales in Core and Growth were in line with our expectations. Click Read More below for additional information.