You will need a bunch of boxes, and a tape dispenser (the kind with a
handle and teeth). You can get the boxes from behind a liquor store, or in
the cardboard-only dumpster behind many other kinds of businesses (there's
one behind the McDonald's on Princess in Kingston). You want smallish
boxes, about the size of a cat carrier at most. I found that some of the
plain brown cardboard boxes started to fall apart in transit. What
survived much better were the wine (or wine-making kit?) boxes, which were
shiny and strong, and a nice shape.
You also need a big piece of floor, for the next step.
PREPARING THE BOOKS
This step might not seem necessary, but for me it was the secret, to
making it both manageable and efficient. Pull all the books off the
shelves, every single one, putting them into piles by *size*. In my
collection there are 4 main sizes: pocket book, trade paperback, oversize
trade paperback, hard cover (or super sized trade paperback), and
textbook. If one is not an exact fit for a category, you can always err on
the larger size. And then one more pile for "weird shape" books (which
included a lot of coffee table books for me, since they vary in size).
First of all this lets you see just how big the job is, and how many boxes
you'll need. It's a process that is easy and satisfying. Secondly, it lets
you pack the boxes by size, which is both a very good way to fill the
space and fast - once you've discovered what orientation they will fit in,
you can drop them in by the armful. It had the expected side effect for me
that they are sorted by size when I took them *out* of the box, so I could
fit them to my variable height of bookshelves.
Once a box is full of a certain size of books, you can then fit the
weird-shaped books, and also magazines, in around the sides. One problem I
haven' was that some of these books got damaged around the edges - maybe
it would be better to pack that with clothes or something. Especially if
you use the brown cardboard, this is not a method that can guarantee to
keep your books in mint condition.
I made up some address labels on MS word, which saved some time.
AT THE POST OFFICE
First of all, there is no longer any "book shipping rate" via greyhound or
viarail or some such. At least none that I could find via internet search.
Please tell me if there's an alternative. But as far as I can see you've
got to go canada post.
My big secret here is to tape smaller boxes together, using packing tape
they supply, and that's cheaper. My dad has known this trick for years,
but I went so far as to geek out and prove why that's true. I spent a fair
bit of time experimenting with the online package rate calculator, and
these are my findings, valid as of January 2008:
- Canada Post rates are calculated by weight, unless the dimensions become
oversized, at which point it is calculated by size.
- The formula is $1.18 per kg + $8.70 (when not oversized) This may not
include the fuel surcharge I just realized, so may underestimate by $1-3.
- Switching to the oversize will always make it more expensive, so you
want to avoid that. The formula is to add up all 3 dimensions in
centimeters, multiply by $0.56, and subtract $50.52.
- The rules for when something becomes oversized are complex, and I didn't
figure them out entirely. Things can be bigger if they're heavier, and I
suspect the more cubic something is (and so hard to pack) the lower the
threshold. A medium box packed with books won't be oversize, but if you
tape a bunch together it might be. Your best bet is to consult with the
person at the post office to make sure you don't go over.
You can see the logic of taping boxes together now: since a 0 kg box costs
$8.70, that's how much you save everytime you tape together two boxes.
At the post office is the place to make sure they're really well taped up.
Some of mine not so much, and there were rips in the cardboard.
That's basically all I've figured out, besides make sure to have a car or
a friend with a car on both ends (my awesome dad actually did the final
mailing on the Victoria side)
THE COST
I shipped the equivalent of about 19 wine-kit sized boxes of books,
8x12x14 inches each (so a bit more than 22 feet on the shelf), for
$319.42. A typical box, actually two taped together, was 16 kg and about
$30. It hurt, but it was sure nice to be reunited. Like all book-loving
people, building a proper home (not a temporary home), I'm just going to
have to get used to this whole process happening every few years.
If you're reading this and know any tips, I'd love to hear them. The
biggest thing that would have helped me: improved tape despenser
technique. I still can't get the hang of that, and end up completely taped
to myself.
No comments:
Post a Comment