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Library Overdue Policies in the News

   April 27th, 2010

Library Police signI'm sure most people by now have seen the story about George Washington having overdue books from the New York Society Library.

This got me thinking about overdue books. The ALA's 2010 State of American Libraries Report was just released, but one statistic it did not include was the number of American households with overdue library material. It must be a high percentage, or else this news story (via LISNews) from Solano County, CA, wouldn't be possible:

Someone has been calling residents posing as a collection agency working with the library, and demanding they provide their credit card number over the phone to pay off fines for overdue material. It sounds like an Urban Legend (but it's not), and since it's on the internet, the same scam might start cropping up in other communities.

My library doesn't charge overdue fines (though we do suspend borrowing privileges for gross offenders), but it's never a bad time to review library policies in case patrons (or staff) have questions. If we did charge fines, I would lobby to implement my favorite tactic, overdue amnesty week, with people getting their fines waived if they return library materials with a non-perishable food item. Or, we could try (passive-aggressive) anti-theft signage.




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2 Responses to “Library Overdue Policies in the News”

  1. Heather Says:

    I enjoy this conversation I had today and funny it kind of pertains to the blog entry:

    Patron: I need a library card

    Me: (after looking up previous account) you owe us 71.00 dollars in lost materials

    Patron: Oh, that stuff doesn’t go away?

    Me: Umm no.

    It boggles my mind the idea of not charging library fines…..sad to say I don’t think we would have much of a collection left. We went to a collection agency two years ago and had an amnesty week prior to this, and sadly we did not receive much back in way of materials.

  2. Brian Herzog Says:

    @Heather: I know. We do charge for lost or damaged items, just not overdue materials. It all depends on the library’s community, but not having to fight about fines is truly a great thing.