Ok, this requires a factual answer so maybe it should go in the GQ forum, but this is the forum for polls. And some prissy junior mod will soon advise me that it’s in the wrong forum. And I pit the prissy little anal Jr Mods, so maybe it should go in the Pit. Stuff getting the post into the right forum, stuff the prissy drama queens and the Jr Mods, here’s the question.
What do you pay ($/day/book) for an overdue library book at the institution where you borrow? Please identify the institution most frequented for borrowing for comparison purposes. I want to see if there is some correlation between a range of variables (country, metropolitan/rural, affluent/low SES etc). Also, just to satisfy a prurient curiosity about other Dopers, how many books do you have out at a time, how long is your return period and how often do you have overdue books?
I borrow from the Brisbane City Council. Overdue fees are $0.50/book/day. I always have twelve books out, I have four weeks to read them and I may have two or three overdue books/year.
Place: A small town in the west of Ireland
Overdue: I’m not exactly sure, but very little. About 20 Eurocent or so per book per day.
How many: Three books according to my own system: one easy read (fantasy/sci-fi/crime. Might be intelligent, very well done and/or disturbing but must be a page-turner), one “proper book” (i.e. a classic or modern literature) and one pot luck (never heard of it but the cover looks good or friend recommends it) plus two CD’s.
How long: A month as well.
Public libraries - two different places in the UK, both 10 pence a day.
University library - 20p per day, except for books on overnight loan (ie the high demand ones), which were charged at £2 a day starting at 10am on the next morning :eek:
Well, most of my borrowing is from the University library - U. of Tennessee. Overdue books there are $0.25/day.
I do occasionally make it to the Knox County library, and I think their overdue fees (for books only - I’ve never checked out an audio book or movie from there) are $0.10/day, except for kids books, which accumulate no fines.
Nothing unless you want to borrow the same day. Otherwise when you return books fines are levied (don’t know the rate) but that night they are automatically remitted. The library stopped caring about fines when they began earning hundreds of dollars a day from internet access.
I have never been overdue at the other two libraries I use so I don’t know there.
For books borrowed from the university’s library, I don’t pay overdue fees at all. Not even when they’re late. (They don’t accumulate fees of any kind until the semester is officially over.)
I generally don’t borrow anything I don’t need for class. Right now, though, I’m working on a term paper for Poli Sci, and so I am reading a book about the Bush administration’s faith-based initiatives.
I borrow at the Alachua County Library in Gainesville, Florida. There are no overdue fines, but they will put a freeze on your card if you have five or more overdues. There’s no limit on how many books you can have out at once. I usually have about 20 out. I think you can keep them about six weeks. I go to the library every week, so I take back what I’ve finished and pick up more. Then I read them in order, and renew when necessary, so it’s rare that I have any overdues.
I only borrow from my university library. Usually the short loan books (either 4hour or 24 hour). The overdue fees are 50p/hour(!) for these books. This week I have spent almost £5 on late fees. I keep forgetting about the books. Normal loan books are maybe 20p/day IIRC.
In fact, this thread reminded me why I’m at the library right now…
At the Michigan State University library, there are no fines on regular material.
However…
[ul]Overdue fines for reserve material are sixty cents (60¢) per item per hour, 24 hours per day, from the time due until the time returned, with no grace period ($14.40 per day).[/ul]
[ul]Overdue fines for recalled items, software, CDs, records, videos, and special permission checkouts are $1 per day from the due date until the day returned, with no grace period.[/ul]
[ul]Overdue fines for laptop computers are $6 per hour, 24 hours per day, from the time due until the time returned, with no grace period ($144.00 per day)[/ul]
The reserve material has ended up nailing a couple of my friends.
I think at the public library in my hometown, it’s something like 5 cents a day.
Late fees are a nickle a day. They send out a letter when you are more than two weeks over due and a phone call after three weeks.
I live 20 miles away from our library, so I occasionally have late fees, generally just one day. I try to go to the library on the same day every two weeks ( Tuesdays ) but sometimes it doesn’t work out and then I realize I have to wait until Wednedsay to get the books back. I always over pay my fines, as the library uses bookfine money to fund some of the kids’ library projects. Say I owe .45, I give them a dollar and tell them to out the other .55 in the funds jar.
My public library (in Wilkes-Barre, PA) is part of a county-wide system, and I believe all libraries in the system have the same late fee/renewal policy. Late fees are $0.25/day and lending periods are 3 weeks plus the option for 2 renewals, which can be done online.
I currently have 6 books out, and I’ve only had one late fee in the past 2 years or so because I forgot to renew a book online before it was due. Once that happens, you can’t renew online, you have to call the library…where they’ll renew it over the phone, but you still have to pay any fees, which for me turned out to be just the $0.25 for one day late.
Public library, county system. 10 cents a day, I believe. For you Americans out there, the majority of public library systems don’t profit from the fines, which go straight into the city or county general fund. Ask what your library does.
I usually have 30 or so books out and a lot of them are overdue. However, I do a little work for the library, so I’m classed as a volunteer and don’t have to pay them, ha ha!
San Francisco Public Library dings ten cents per day on books, and a buck a day on videos. Children and teens 0-17 are not assesed overdue fines. Lucky brats!
Library cards are free for California residents, and guest cards can be bought for $10 for three months.
My hometown library charges fifteen cents a day on books, with a 28-day loan period. Cards are free to city residents, and residents of other Illinois cities can generally use their home-town library cards for no extra charge. Non-residents, or those living in regions with no library tax, can buy a card for $197 per year.
The Flint Public Library charges late fees after three weeks of rental time. Its .05 a day for adult books, .01 a day for children’s books, and $1.00 a day for late movies. Not too bad.
Gwinnett County Library, Gwinnett County, Georgia, USA (suburban Atlanta, pop. ~650K): 3 week loan period, renewable once for an additional 3 weeks on all items; $0.10/day late fee (1 day grace period). I typically have 5-10 items out at any given time, and perhaps once in three batches of books I’ll end up being late getting something back. I’ve probably paid more than $5 but less than $10 in fines each of the last few years.
DeKalb County Library, DeKalb County, Georgia, USA (suburban Atlanta, pop. ~675K); 3 week loan period, except for videotape/DVD materials, which loan for 1 week; non-video materials may be renewed twice, for a total of nine weeks; video/DVD items may be renewed once for a total of two weeks; $0.10/day late fee on all items except video/DVD items, which are $1/day. I pay $45/year for a non-resident card, because there are at least four branches that are more convenient to my home/work locations than any of the Gwinnett County Library branches, and because DeKalb has a large collection of Hollywood/foreign movies, while Gwinnett has only non-fiction videos (and not many of those) and kids’ movies. I figure the $45 is probably less than I’d typically spend at Blockbuster in a year otherwise, and they also have a much better collection of popular music CDs than Gwinnett (one whole branch of the DeKalb library, Covington, is pretty much dedicated to audio/video materials). Their book collections also nicely supplement Gwinnett’s – I’ve frequently found things I wanted there when Gwinnett didn’t have them. I rarely end up paying any late fees, since I often have video items out and the dollar-a-day fees on those are a pretty strong incentive to get things back, and because the nine-week total borrowing period for other stuff is usually enough to be able to finish anything.
Small town, pop. 2,300, rural Minnesota. My library charges $.10 a day for books and audio books, $1 a day for video tapes, and $2 a day for DVDs. It’s a county-wide system.
I’m a slow reader, so I only check out one book at a time. Check-out is for two weeks, and from what I can tell, you can re-check them as many times as you want as long as there isn’t a list of people waiting to check it out.
I’ve only returned a book late once. When I brought it in, I readily admitted to my lateness and offered to pay the fine, but they said I didn’t have to because it was only a day late.
(They don’t accumulate fees of any kind until the semester is officially over.)