If I were wealthy enough, I’d try to have charges brought against them; it sounds like a sweet little racket they have going, supplying a too-small return box then demanding money.
It’s as though librarians and libraries are automatically considered paragons of virtue, as unassailable as the pope on the witness stand. Must be cultural. Everyone should demand a receipt for each and every book returned to protect against accusations of theft.
That guy arrested for not returning a book should have said he had. Arrested and jailed for not returning a book justifies the killing of puppies if that’s what it take to beat the rap.
My guess as to the confusion is that you and I are interpreting that in a different way. To me, it sounded like TBG’s mom found the book in the library, thus ending her “overdue” problem. You are interpreting that she got the notices, then eventually they stopped, because they had found the book in the library. Which of these interpretations is correct is not clear from the phrasing.
It says she eventually found the book. The she in question is clearly the mother, who went to the shelf and found it there.
Had the book been misshelved in addition to not properly checked back in, she’d have been screwed. The patron searching the library for the returned book is not part of the system, which obviously failed.
Why did the system fail? Until the patron alerts the library that there is a problem, no hunt for an unchecked in/misshelved item can begin. Are we supposed to be mindreaders?
Nevermind, I already know the answer to that, of course we’re supposed to be mindreaders.
I don’t know about you but I take responsibility for my actions, which means when I leave other people’s stuff out where it can be stolen and it predictably gets stolen, that’s my fault. Furthermore, the library said that since the drop was full, they would have refunded any fines for that day had I kept the book another day. So no, there’s no racket.
I far prefer the system of being able to drop off books quickly and whenever I darn well please to yet another line where I wait for a slip of paper I’m going to throw away anyway. I’m not exactly scared by the specter of “Libraries will accuse everyone of theft just to get money! oooOOOOoooo!” because it doesn’t happen. (“Doesn’t happen” being a small enough percentage to not be applicable. Somewhere, one unscrupulous employee in a library scammed someone out of money this month. That isn’t enough for anyone to care about in the grand question of “Are libraries out to get you”)
And sometimes it will be about more expensive materials then a GED study guide (though if enough of those walk off the cost does add up). Libraries often have out-of-print materials. Replacing those (and if an item is in demand we will try to replace it) isn’t a matter of $25.00 and ten minutes of cataloging. It’s hoping the item can even be found and then hoping there is enough money in the budget to cover the costs.
If a book is rare and valuable, one is not normally permitted to check it out.
Regardless, THIS time, the one the person was arrested for, it was a GED study book, which would have no value if it was out of print, as it would be outdated, so we can safely say its replacement cost would not exceed its cover price.
Sometimes a person steals a $50,000 ring, so we should treat the guy that steals gum from the machine by the jewelry store door exactly like the hypothetical ring thief, right?
TBGMom once checked a book out from the library.
TBGMom later returned that book to the library.
In spite of the fact that she had already returned the book to the library, TBGMom started getting overdue notices saying that the book had NOT been returned and was now overdue.
TBGMom went back to the library and located the book, on a bookshelf at the library.
TBGMom succeeded after the system failed. The system did not register her return and sent out untrue and inappropriate overdue notices–at the public’s expense, no less! Wasted postage, printing costs, wages for the worker that handled the false notices. TBGMom’s time was wasted, and her time has value. She may have driven to the library, wasting expensive gas, or ridden public transportation, wasting fare money, plus those fares are subsidized, so it wasted our money there too. Arrest the system for its theft, false accusations, and general incompetence, for it has robbed us all!
I’m a librarian, but not a public librarian, and I’ve never had a job that involved dealing with fines. However, from what I’ve heard – and I hope the public librarians in this thread will correct me if I’m wrong – public libraries do not get to keep the money they collect in fines as profit, so a library would not benefit from making it difficult for people to return their books on time. The primary purpose of overdue fees and replacement fees is to discourage people from keeping books too long or losing them in the first place.
I can say based on my own experience as a librarian that getting the original book back is preferable to getting the replacement fee. Ordering and processing a replacement copy involves more work for more people, and it’s not like we get paid extra for that.
Sorry Lamia, you’re slightly off. I can’t speak for all public librarians, but I know that in my system that a certain of overdue fines are expected to be collected every year as part of our annual operating budget. So while we don’t encourage fines, the town that funds us expects us to collect a certain amount of them.
Then I guess you’d be a wee bit screwed if people started behaving more responsibly and stopped abusing their good fellow citizens by hogging the books.
Not from that quote we don’t.