End-of-year Bloomington Stock Center Shipping Schedule

The Bloomington Stock Center no longer ships stocks during the last
approximately-half of December. The combination of cold weather, the
holiday mail crunch, and departmental holiday closings makes this a poor
time for shipping stocks. Our experience was that a large proportion of
stocks mailed during this period did not reach the recipient alive and had
to be reshipped in January. We now close to the public during this interval
and use this time for once-a-year projects and staff holidays. Please plan
ahead and order any stocks you will need in late December or early January
before we close the order on the last shipment of 2004.

If you work outside the U.S. we strongly encourage you to order stocks no
later than December 1.

Orders of 30 stocks or fewer received by 7 am EST on December 9 will be
included in the December 13th shipment, our last shipment of 2004.

Orders of 31-100 stocks must be placed by 7 am EST on December 2 to
guarantee shipment during 2004. Requests for larger numbers of stocks may
be delayed until 2005.

Orders received after the deadline will be shipped in January of 2005.

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