The Official Rules of
Membership for the S&H Lending Library
updated: August 14, 2001
Everyone applying to the Library will send an age statement which includes your real name, address, email address, a sentence that you know what slash fiction is, and your signature. If you only want gen materials from the library, that's fine, but you still need to send the age statement. If you are paying through PayPal the age statement can either be sent through Paypal (there is a space for sending messages) or under separate cover to Flamingo, but before we can mail you your first shipment we MUST have the age statement with a legal signature mailed to us.
Membership
entitles you to six shipments.
a. Shipments are
approximately every two months, but there may be delays due to
real life issues, and the availability of library materials.
b. A shipment consists
of approximately two pounds of library materials, depending on
availability.
c. Library materials
may consist of zines, novelizations, video tapes, or other materials
as they become available.
NOTE: any member may chose to leave the library at any time with written notice.
Members who leave before receiving their 6 shipments may receive a pro-rated refund based on
dollars divided by shipments.
Library members pay
the postage for Library shipments. You can:
a. send a $3.50 Priority Mail stamp with your $19 membership
fee and age statement, and then send another $3.50 Priority stamp
whenever you return a shipment to the Library for the next shipment.
Without the stamp, you can't receive another shipment. Or,
b. you can request the Library's Premium Service. By sending an
additional $21 along with the $19 membership fee and age statement,
your postage will be covered for all six shipments and the Library
will purchase the stamps.
NOTE: If the USPS raises postal
rates we will regrettably have to pass that expense onto individual
members. Our experience with using cheaper forms of postal service,
such as bookrate, is that it ends up being far more expensive since
many more zines end up getting lost.
You can send a "wish list" with your membership, or email it later. We'll attempt to satisfy that wish list as best we can, but you may have to wait for favored items. All materials are loaned "as is." We cannot guarantee the condition of materials, especially those most in demand.
You have (roughly) four weeks to read or copy the materials and return them. You may make a copy of a fanzine for yourself, or if you want to make a copy for a friend, that's also fine. However, a responsible library user will not mass produce the fanzines. If you do make copies of the zines for yourself and a friend, we ask that you please do not resell these copies when you no longer want them, but consider donating them back to the Library. We ask that Library zines which are still in print not be copied, but be purchased from the appropriate agent or publisher. We will have notices on these zines as to how to purchase the zine. Publishers who are generously allowing us to stock their in-print zines may change their mind if the Library becomes a source of boot-leg zines.
Everyone who belongs to the Lending Library has a file. In that file is your signed age statement, your wish list, and the record of materials we sent you and when we sent them. If we are very late in sending you a shipment, please communicate with us. Every member will be given the email addresses of several people on The Committee, so that if one of them is unable to respond, the others will able to. If real life concerns cause you to delay returning the materials, please let Flamingo know by email or a quick note to the Library's PO Box. (If Flamingo does not respond in a few days, contact one of the other librarians.) The delay may be perfectly understandable, however, we can't send any new materials until you return the previously borrowed ones. If you should refuse to return materials, you will forfeit your membership fee and any postage you've sent, and be barred from using the library. (But we know you would never do that!)
The Library will not send shipments after November 10th and before January 15. This will reduce the chances of losing items in the crush of holiday mail. If you are due a shipment during that time, regrettably, it will have to wait. (But you'll be too busy dealing with the holidays to read anyway!)
For more information contact Flamingo.