Magazine readers prefer print (fipp.com)

OverDrive reps reported this week that a record 152 library systems and consortia across seven countries—including 41 states and seven Canadian provinces—surpassed the one million digital lends benchmark in 2023, which includes e-books, digital audiobooks, and digital magazines. The numbers represent a significant jump from the 129 library systems that hit the milestone in 2022. The 152 public libraries hitting the milestone are based in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The United States Postal Service reported new delivery performance metrics through the first two weeks of the fiscal third quarter. For the week ending April 15 and the third consecutive week, First-Class Mail on-time delivery performance was nearly 94 percent. Through the first two weeks of the third quarter, the average time for delivery of a mailpiece across the postal network was 2.4 days. Third quarter service performance scores covering April 1 through April 15 included: *First-Class Mail: 93.6 percent of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an increase of 5.7 percentage points from the fiscal second quarter. *Marketing Mail: 95.4 percent of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an increase of 2.8 percentage points from the fiscal second quarter. *Periodicals: 87.7 percent of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of 5.8 percentage points from the fiscal second quarter.

Holiday spending is expected to increase as much as 4 percent this year. That may not sound like much, but Americans are on track to spend a record $960 billion celebrating the December holidays. For retailers and consumers alike, printed receipts can help make the season brighter. Traditionally, Black Friday heralds the start of the holiday season, but for many, holiday spending is already in full swing, and it won’t stop until January, after the last gifts have been opened and any returns have been made. And despite what some anti-receipt advocates say, consumers overwhelmingly prefer to receive printed receipts with their purchases instead of digital receipts. “In our recent consumer survey, we found that 76 percent of folks want some form of a printed receipt, or at least the option to choose a printed receipt,” says Andrea Forehand, Domtar’s director of sales for thermal POS. “Skip the Slip legislation has come up twice in California, and we’ve been successful in lobbying to prevent that legislation from becoming law because people do want the choice.”