[Publib] Fines

[James Casey]

Mindy raises a good point about “cost/benefit” ratio.   Overdue fines don’t really cover a modest fraction of the costs incurred by the Library in staff time, postage, etc. involved with chasing down delinquent borrowers.  Add to that the complaints, threats, stress, and possible bad PR involved with this unpleasant process and you have staff involvement up to the Director level on occasion and sometimes Board involvement.   While we need to hold people accountable for what they borrow, it has never been a real money maker for the libraries I have worked with over the past 35 years.

One method used in our area to diminish incidence of irate patron interaction is to permit patrons to clear their own fines on-line using a credit card.  With E-Commerce, by Innovative Interfaces  http://www.iii.com/  a patron can access their own record and immediately clear fines without having to come to the Library and fork over money across the counter.   I am convinced that the inconvenience of having to come and personally confront a staff person at the Library Circulation Desk to clear a fine represents 90% of the difficulty.   For most busy people, time is often far more precious than money.

James B. Casey --- my own views.
Director of Oak Lawn Public Library



From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Mindy Kittay
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 9:50 AM
To: k_sappington at yahoo.com; Publib Publib Discussion
Subject: Re: [Publib] Fines

I would like to clarify that I am in no way approving the behavior of this particular patron.  But I would like to add that there are ways to structure fines so that users do not feel nickeled and dimed to death but still teach a sense of responsibility and maintain a revenue stream for the library.  It must be extremely uncomfortable for staff to continually have to deal with collecting small fines and by replacing this system we may be able to eliminate SOME of the irate behavior of users with fines.

Mindy Kittay, MLS
Finance Director
Rangeview Library District
11658 North Huron
Northglenn, CO 80234
(303) 288-2001
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