[Publib] Food for fines revisited

[Patrick Sweeney]

I have to say that I love "Food for Fines" drives for many reasons.  The guidelines we put forth at my previous library were:

1) Materials had to be returned to get the overdue charges removed, I.E. no paying for lost/missing/damaged items with food as we would have pay to replace the item anyway.

2) Food couldn't be expired or damaged and it had to be non-perishable

 So, if you returned your items (no matter how late) with some food (no matter how much) we would wave your fines.  We got so many materials returned with a can of food or two that I can't imagine what we saved in the cost of re-ordered and re-processed materials. Also, it was fantastic PR!  Sure, some people returned their materials with a package of Ramen Noodles and got 20-30 dollars of fines waved, but we got the material back, we got the food, and got the patron to come back to the library.  Really it was a WIN, WIN, WIN situation.  I would also like to point out that for every person who brought in 1 package of ramen noodles or the like, we got people who didn't owe fines bringing in food for the local community pantry that we were donating the food to and we also got people bringing in WAY more food than their fines were worth.  I can't figure out a bad angle to look at this from, and I tried!
 
Patrick Sweeney
www.twitter.com/pcsweeney

 




________________________________
From: Janet Cavanagh <jcavanag at russell.lioninc.org>
To: PUBLIB <publib at webjunction.org>
Sent: Friday, October 2, 2009 9:56:55 AM
Subject: [Publib] Food for fines revisited

Dear Colleagues, 

My director wants very much to have a "food for fines" drive.   I have searched the archives but only found one item, under a discussion on library promotion and it was an academic library.   I am sure this topic has come up here so I apologize.  Could you give me some pros and cons?  Russell Library is a middle public library.

I have visions of someone bringing in a turnip because he had the first season of the Sopranos out for 6 months.


Much appreciated.

-- 
Janet Cavanagh
Circulation Department
Russell Library
123 Broad Street
Middletown, CT 06457
860-347-2528



      
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