[Publib] Credit cards/Paypal for fines

[James Casey]

Karen is right.  The best objective would be for the patrons to be able
to access their own records on the ILS and be able to use their credit
cards to eliminate the obligations without having to interact with
anyone either remotely or via e-mail and/or phone.  It isn't just a
matter of avoiding the expenditure of staff time in order to finalize
the payment, but moving away from situations where arguments about the
fines themselves create stress for staff and patrons alike, and bad
public relations for the Library.  A direct, quick and seamless way to
discharge fines could save an enormous about of difficulty for busy
circulation desks.  

James B. Casey --- My own views 
Director of Oak Lawn Public Library
ALA Council Member


-----Original Message-----
From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of K.G. Schneider
Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2006 10:51 PM
To: 'Publib'
Subject: RE: [Publib] Credit cards/Paypal for fines

> I investigated PayPal - in case any of you aren't
> familiar with EBay, buyers/patrons can set up an
> account which can pay multiple vendors with their
> credit card.  This is cheaper for a vendor or library
> than setting up a merchant account to accept credit
> cards.
> 
> So either there is a shortage of information about
> this, or very few libraries accept credit card
> payments.

I'm guessing that the cumbersome/expensive part is the tie-in with the
fines
section of the ILS, which PayPal wouldn't alleviate. What I've been
hearing
are *implementation/integration* fees, not the cost of doing business by
credit card.

Karen G. Schneider
kgs at bluehighways.com 

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