But you’re poor and in a gang and committing crimes and unemployed. You don’t have time to return the book.
Again, I don’t think that anyone here is advocating making anyone exempt from library fines. The concern came from the level of the fines (with the additional “repurchasing fee”) and blocking patrons from using non-loan services. There’s something to be said for not giving someone a second book to never return and that person can always look at said second book while in the library. I don’t think that needs to come with loss of other services the patron may need – they’re not going to take the library’s internet home and lose it under the couch.
You say fines were capped at $20 at which point you lost borrowing privileges. At the library in question, you lose borrowing privileges (and more) at $10 and as for the $20 cap…
I’m only guessing at what the fines were capped at; it was a long time ago. But you have to say “No more borrowing still you settle up!” at some point, and wherever it is will hurt somebody. It’s SUPPOSED to hurt; it won’t work if it doesn’t hurt.
I also wonder if the cutting off of non-loan services is deliberate or a consequence of other policies. In Memphis the rule is effectively the same, because to sign iup for a session on a library computer you must have a valid library card. I remember, to the day, when this change occurred. It was shortly after Hurricane Katrina, and I was supporting myself solely by writing freelance. I’d go to the library every day to work–not because I needed the computers, but because I was working on something that required me to have access to the Memphis History room, much of whose materials could not be checked out. Anyway, at that time you had to physically sign up at the desk to get onto a computer. This created a lot of congestion, so the library changed things so that you inputted your library card number to get a two-hour session; this let them automatically police the no-more-than-two-hours a day rule, but also made it easy to enforce the two-hour-a-day rule, but also resulted in people with outstanding fines getting cut off from the computers.
I’m still cool with the rule. Kids have to learn to be responsible. If they don’t return books on time they get charged; if they don’t pay the fine they get cut off from all but the most basic library services. As someone who grew up poor and loving the library, I can’t see how that is a bad thing.
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer]
As someone who grew up poor and loving the library, I can’t see how that is a bad thing.
[/QUOTE]
Total agreement.
About the only concession I’ll make is a ten year rule; if an adult comes in who has outstanding books on their account from when they were a kid a decade or more ago I will usually wave them. Some librarians won’t do that.
It’s not. When I was a kid, our library charged 5 cents a day, which was half the cost of a candy bar. Candy bars go for about 1.09 in most stores and 1.00 to 1.25 in most vending machines.
I’m not sure what this means. If you are not sure you can make it back to the library for six months, maybe you should not check out any books.
Regards,
Shodan
Memphis public libraries did that for my baby sister. During her senior year in high school she had checked out some books and forgotten to return them. Finding them packed in a box years later, she dutifully took them in, intending to pay the fine. They told her she needn’t bother (though they were happy to pay the books back).
I’ll write San Jose and tell them to extend their lending period to six months, thanks 
The phrase penny wise pound foolish comes to mind. From the quoted article:
A kid that reads is going to be smarter, more knowledgeable, and more likely to succeed in the future. Denying them access to the library denies the public of the benefit of having kids that smarter, more knowledgeable, and more likely to succeed. A benefit that, over the lifetime of these kids, certainly is going to accrue to be more than the replacement value of a handful of kids books.
Beyond the practical argument, it comes down to a basic level of fairness. Citizens should not be denied government services because they are unable to pay fines. These fines ought to be waived based on income. Frankly, I’m surprised they haven’t been challenged legally.
The thing is when these kids should be reading and when a huge amount of kids are returning books late or losing them and not returning them at all they are denying a whole bunch of other children the chance to read too.
If libraries start running out of books to loan then maybe we can talk about other kids being denied the chance to read.
The purpose of the fines is not primarily to save the library money, I daresay. It’s to force irresponsible borrowers to return the items they borrow, or, failing that, to cut them off.
Let’s take my own childhood library as an example. It was quite small and in a poor neighborhood. It was 3 miles from my childhood home, and bus service wasn’t great, and my family had but one car, which my dad needed for work, which was often six days a week. Going there was something of an occasion. So I can understand the difficulty of getting there, and getting books back on time.
Bur so what? If I kept books overdue,it meant that I was depriving OTHER kids of the opportunity to check out those books. They had as much right to them as I did. So the library fined me for irresponsibility. This caused my parents, who had to pay the fines when I was ten, to forbid me to check out more than two books at a time, even though I was capable of reading far more. That was no different, and no more “unfair,” than it would have been to say “Skald, you can’t go to the movies more than once every two months because we can’t afford any more.”
More books for the poor kids who do return their books on time i guess.
Yeah…you don’t suppose, do you, that some books might be a fuck-ton more in demand than others? Nah…that’s more crazy talk.
The Harry Potter series. The Percy Jackson series.
When I was a kid, in my neighborhood, the Three Investigators series were oddly popular. Levi Branch Library ostensibly had them all, but they were often checked out. Sometimes a certain asshole who looked just like me would keep pverdue for long periods. Boy needed a whipping.
Suppose somebody is moderately irresponsible. Which is better, to ding them a token amount as a reminder, or to let the penalties swiftly escalate to the point where they are cut off, and end up keeping or throwing away books they can’t afford to return?
I’ve never been to San Jose. Are people there notably less responsible than most of the country? Or is it the library’s policies which create the difference?
I don’t visit cities with the word “Jose” in the name, so I can’t speak to the irresponsibility of the San Joseians. But it seems to me that the policy as described in the article, though perhaps a mite harsher than I would like, is not unreasonable. There’s going to be some subset of users who will be deterred from returning books at anything but a nominal fine, true; but if the library doesn’t cut off borrowing at any point, then I guarantee those users will simply keep the books they really want forever.
Hell, my copy of Robert Heinlein’s TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE was, though not technically STOLEN from the library, certainly acquired dishonestly. In 1986 or so, I wanted the book in hardcover but couldn’t find it for sale (this was long before Amazon), so I checked out out, returned the next day, and told them I had lost it. I paid the lost book fine and boom, it was mine. Which doesn’t sound like it hurt anyone … except that I was depriving some other young black science fiction fan of access to that book, as the library did not replace it. (I loved Heinlein and was perpetually checking out his books, so I’d have noticed it on the shelf.)
Seventeen year old Skald was a thief who deserved to have his library privileges revoked.
(Lest anyone get all snippy, 30-year-old Skald felt bad–by Skald standards-- and donated a copy of said book anonymously, attaching an explanatory note that was a ball of lies, so in essence I ended up paying for the book three times.)
You’ll rarely go to a mid-sized or smaller library that has a full set of Harry Potter in the collection. There’s usually at least one missing and another one will disappear as quickly as you can replace them.
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer]
The purpose of the fines is not primarily to save the library money, I daresay. It’s to force irresponsible borrowers to return the items they borrow, or, failing that, to cut them off.
[/QUOTE]
100% right. All of the fines for an entire system added together might pay one paraprofessionals salary for the year. All of the missing books in a system’s library, however, would usually fill a new library.
And when I say that book budgets are pitiful, believe me- I don’t mean they’ve been cut by 10% or 20% since the Clinton era- more like 75% to 90% in many libraries.
And almost every library will let you renew books once, often twice, online or with a phone call and most citywide systems will let you return the book to any public library in the city, so that gives you anywhere from 6 to 9 weeks to get the books back.
And again, most are more than happy to work something out on the fines if you return the books. Where I’ve worked if the books are stolen or lost in a house fire we’ll waive the replacement so long as you show us a police report or a fire report- something that shows it isn’t just a “the dog ate my homework” excuse. This isn’t like sending Luca Brazi to your home to collect the books, the terms are very reasonable.
eh, not worth it
So middle-income children should pay fines, but poor children shouldn’t? What the ever loving fuck are you talking about?