Library and Media Mail

Media Mail® and Library Mail Rate Services have special eligibility requirements and because of this are not sealed against postal inspection. Plainly stated, by taking advantage of the discounted rate of mailing you’re giving the USPS permission to open and inspect the contents of your parcel should they have any reason to believe that your shipment does not qualify for the discount. These classes are considered to be second class mail, so there is no guaranteed date of delivery available for shipments.

Detailed rules for Media and Library Rate mail can be found here in the DMM Prices and Eligibility section or you may read the less verbose interpretation below.

Media Mail® Service

Prices for Media Mail® start at $3.19 and are based on the weight of the shipment regardless of destination.

Shipments that qualify for Media Mail® service include:

• Books with at least 8 pages
• Sound and video recordings like CDs and DVDs
• Playscripts and manuscripts for books, periodicals and music
• Printed sheet music
• Computer-readable media containing prerecorded information and guides or scripts prepared solely for use with such media
• 16 millimeter or narrower width films
• Printed objective test materials and accessories
• Printed educational reference charts
• Loose-leaf pages and their binders consisting of medical information for distribution to doctors, hospitals, medical schools and medical students

Media Mail® shipments may not contain advertising except for incidental announcements for other books and sound recordings.

Library Mail Service

Starting at $3.03, Library Mail prices are based on the weight of the piece without regard to destination.

Each piece must come from a school, college, university, public library, museum, or herbarium or the name of a nonprofit religious, educational, scientific, philanthropic (charitable), agricultural, labor, veterans, or fraternal organization or association and be noted in the return address. Materials that qualify for this classification include:

• Books with no advertising that contain mostly non-blank pages (so, not empty journals)
• Printed music, bound or individual sheets
• Bound volumes of academic theses
• Periodicals, bound or unbound
• Sound recordings
• Other library materials in printed, duplicated or photographic form or in the form of unpublished manuscripts
• 16-millimeter or narrower width films, filmstrips, transparencies, slides and microfilms in final form for viewing

Simply put, Library Mail is for libraries and institutions to send books and materials to each other in a cost effective manner.