Anna writes “The Portales City Council passed an amendment to an ordinance that will now define library book theivery as a misdemenor punishable by a $50 to $100 fine. The Portales Public Library will offer a two week amnesty for overdue books to be returned, as well as an alternative for juvenile offenders. The loss of books the cost of replacement combined with deadbeat offenders has become a serious problem for the library.
At any given time, 400 books go missing out of a total collection of 40,000, said librarian director Denise Burnett.
The fines and costs of replacing books now total $38,000, she said.
“I’ve been here 20 years, and more and more books are coming up missing,” she said. “And there’s a new lack of willingness to pay for them on some people’s part. It’s been more difficult to collect.”
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that could be a real problem…
Every library I have ever worked at has the occasional case of a book that the patron says they returned. Sometimes we find it right away on the shelf; sometimes we find it months later. I fear that if losing a library book was a crime, the mere fact that someone checked it out would be considered proof of the crime; there’s no way to prove that they did, in fact, return it and the library messed up – which does happen. This runs the risk of having innocent people accused of crimes, which is not only bad for its own sake, but also because it alienates people from the library. Besides, even if some people make a fuss about paying (I had one patron just last week who was yelling at me at the top of his lungs about not wanting to pay!), the majority are contrite and willing to pay for their lost books.
money money money…
Our circulation dept had enough. After a certain point now – patrons get to go to a collection agency. Apparently people are more worried about their credit ratings than paying up. But this solution has been working…
maybe
Maybe the person could cook meals for all the taxpayers – they are the ones footing the bill when stuff like this happens.
Re:maybe
Argh- not my day. The above comment was meant for a different story. I do apologize.
Re:that could be a real problem…
But it is the people who have many books/DVDs, etc. overdue that tend to be the ones who do not want to pay fines/lost book fees. I work in a library and we have had people come in get a card, check out 20 DVDs/VHS tapes or books and never bring them back. These type of people need to be made responsible for their theft. Many people may be honest, but for the ones who are not, there should be consequences for their actions.