The forecast was correct today and it poured rain earlier and has gone from being bone dry in the garden to too wet to plant anything at the moment. So you get a post from me tonight. Aren’t you lucky? (I hope you know I’m teasing. I am not so self-centered that I believe I am a gift to the interwebs. Well ok, maybe a little)
A week ago my accumulated library overdue charges reached $10 and the library sent me an email to tell me that I would not be allowed to check out any more books until I paid my fines. Which was okay because I planned to pay them off when it got to $10 anyway. I have to admit though that it got me moving a little faster perhaps than I normally would because there was a book I requested in-transit to my library branch and I didn’t want anyone telling me I could not borrow it.
My library fines are back to zero. We’ll see how long that lasts. Given that it took me several years to reach $10, I feel fairly confident that I will not soon have to pay them off again.
With my fines paid in full, it was with much interest that I read a newspaper article, San Jose: Three people owe library more than $10,000 for overdue books. Yikes! San Jose is a city in the northern half California, a bit south of San Francisco. The big question, of course, is how the heck does a person manage to have $10,000 in library fines?
No one seems to know. The library, like mine, supposedly cuts off a patron from borrowing when fines reach $10. However, patrons are allowed to have as many as 100 books checked out at any given time. I suppose a person could borrow 100 books and go overdue on all of them and possibly not even return them and suddenly get a bill from the library for $10,000. But really? I mean, I borrow a lot of library books but I have never had more than 10 out at any given time. Borrowing 100 is just plain ridiculous.
Ok, I can imagine a few scenarios. The person might be a writer doing research for a book. Or possibly someone unaffiliated with a university doing research for some project. Nonetheless, collecting all those library books is going to take a few trips.
Now of course everyone in San Jose is talking about how to make people of all stripes pay their library fines. Apparently the total amount of unpaid library fines is $6.8 million. Imagine what the library could do with those millions! A few people are supporting publishing the names of the most egregious offenders. The library says that public shaming would cause too much emotional distress for people which, while true, I also find kind of funny.
The most important reason to not name names, however, is the fact that libraries are all about privacy. It’s all kinds of wrong for the public to know I owe $50 in overdue fines because I borrowed books on getting rid of toe fungus, curing baldness, and a cookbook with recipes for increasing my libido and that of my significant other. The library would not have to reveal what books I had borrowed but if I owed wads of dollars for overdue fines wouldn’t you be curious what books I borrowed that could be worth it?
Is there a moral to the story? Not really. But do be good library citizens and pay your fines before you get cut off from borrowing or have to take out a bank loan to pay them off.
100 books at a time! I developed a habit of checking out really big, fat books as a kid, because I was limited to ten books at one time, and I only got driven to the public library once a week.
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Jeanne, now that is an understandable habit! 🙂
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I’m pretty sure I got close to 100 books at a time when I was in college, but I can’t imagine checking out so many books now.
I hope the rain has disappeared now. We had six days of rain, a two-day reprieve, and now we’re expecting rain again. At least the ground has been soft for planting.
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AMB, yeah, I may have gotten close to that in grad school when I was working on my master’s thesis but never even close since then. It’s been raining all week with only brief breaks. I think we are supposed to see some sun Thursday. I hope you have gotten a break in your rain!
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It’s still dreary here! Ugh.
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Hopefully not for much longer!
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When I first had my adult library card, and was no longer limited to a max fine of $5 or something, I racked up massive fines, absolutely disgraceful. These days I am much better about it. Since I use the library so so so SO often, I’ve put systems in place to avoid forgetting about books long enough to let them fall overdue, and so far they’re working pretty well.
(she said, knocking urgently on wood)
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So hard to figure out how that happens. Perhaps someone who borrowed the 65 volumes of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (that had somehow wandered from the reference shelves) in 1975 might manage something like that!
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Ian, ha! I am sure the Great Soviet Encyclopedia was something everyone wanted a piece of in the 70s 😉
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Jenny, oh you are naughty! Glad to hear you have reformed 🙂
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Two comments;
1 – how wonderful it was, as a librarian, never to be subject to fines!!!
2 – people do, I fear, join libraries under false names, take out new and shiny books up to the limit, then sell them. [I know this because some particularly dim people used to sell them in the market near one branch I worked at; we got those back!] Even if the library service does have it’s system geared to a cut-off point for fines, which such books would of course amass, it is still possible that after many, many years one could calculate the total fine.
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Sue, I am sure as a librarian you never abused the system 🙂
You are right about people borrowing books from the library and then selling them. A few years ago it was in the news about a woman in St Paul who was borrowing DVDs and then selling them. The most horrible story though was a librarian who had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of books and sold most of them. It happens, but I hope it doesn’t happen very often.
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I hope so too. The other thing that grieved me was theft of illustrations from art books and even covers from books, such as SF, whose artists were desirable. So selfish.
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My guess is that Sue’s right–they’ve been stealing and/or reselling. I have to admit I might be tempted if I were hard-up enough. (Nb: a college friend of mine still hasn’t formally graduated because he hasn’t paid his £40 library fines. Another college friend of mine “forgot” to return some deeply obscure tomes that hadn’t been checked out for 30 years and were of great interest to her. I know it’s naughty but I rather like the audacity!)
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Elle, I suspect Sue is right though I want to think better of people and hope that it is all just a horrible mistake on the part of the library patrons even if it probably isn’t. That’s rather funny about your friend not having officially graduated because of library fines! And your other college friend, very naughty, though I understand the impulse.
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Those library fines sound incredible. Perhaps they should not let people take out that many books.
It is really difficult to get people to pay even small fines if they do not intend to use the library much.
It seems that electronic book renewal makes it easy these days to avoid them.
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Brian Joseph, yes, maybe with all the publicity they will put a smaller limit on the number of books people are allowed to borrow. The undergrad library at the university where I work as a two-week fine forgiveness period where if the students bring in so many canned foods per dollars owed, their fines get cleared. It works really well. Borrowing ebooks definitely makes it easy to not have overdue fines since the books pretty much return themselves!
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At my library, most of the very high harges we see are for lost items rather than for overdues. With DVDs in particular, the charges are quite high because we’re required to get the pricey rental versions to add to stock. If you have, say, 4 of those out and you lose them, it can add up to a massive charge pretty quickly.
People are often very apologetic when they pay off fines that are £5+, but to be honest as long as everything comes back safely we really don’t mind. The money always goes back into the service, so I try to encourage people to think of it as a way to support us 😛
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Ana, heh, I think of my overdue fees as a library donation too 🙂 Those lost DVD charges sound like they can really hurt. But I think most people who use the library always have good intentions and feel bad when things go awry. We rarely charge fines at my law library and it is always fun to see how happy people get when I tell them they don’t owe anything. 🙂
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I’ve never complained about fines. So much cheaper than buying the books! My library folks always act a little guilty about charging late fees, but I’m quick to assure them that I don’t mind at all. Libraries are a gift that I appreciate fully–and although I’m sometimes late returning books, they are never very late because I always need more to read.
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jenclair, I don’t complain about fines either because it’s my own fault if my books are late getting back. Plus, you are right, much cheaper than buying books!
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You can’t really ‘forget’ that you had so many library books checked out can you so this must be a deliberate act. Usually the library offers some kind of amnesty when the fine reaches a certain point just to get the book back
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BookerTalk, yeah, it seems it would be kind of hard to forget about all those books. Even if it is deliberate it is still rather astonishing!
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I have a $6 fine waiting for me on my next library visit. My library also cuts me off at $10 but they also don’t allow 100s of books to be checked out. I think I have a max of 25. Anyway, I always find these stories of crazy dollars in fines so curious. Who are these people and what have they checked out?!
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Iliana, I’m not sure what the max on books borrowed is at my library. I don’t expect I will ever bump up against it. I find stories like these curious too. Would love to know who the people are, the whys and all that!
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The moral of the story is… consider yourself very lucky that it took you years to accumulate to $10. For us here, each day late is 30 cents. It will only take me a month to get close to $10. Yes, I can take out 100 books, but who will do that? I mean, how can I keep track of where those 100 books are in the house? I’ve trouble keeping track of half a dozen library books in the house.
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Arti, my library charges 25 cents per item per day but the library is only a mile from my house so I have few excuses for being late other than I just have a couple more pages to read before I return the book 🙂 I too have a hard enough time sometimes of keeping track of the 4-5 library books I have checked out I wouldn’t know what to do with 100!
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My great-grandmother had a book she borrowed from a library and decided to keep. I think she paid the fee without remorse- she just saw it as a way to acquire the book. I wish I could remember the title of it now.
When I lived in San Francisco I once idly asked a librarian what the checkout limit was. She said 100 books. I was really surprised. I laughed and asked how anyone could carry out 100 books at a time? In all seriousness she told me someone had done it once- with a grocery shopping cart. I still wonder why. Just because they could? or some serious research.
(I also feel like I’ve told this story in blog comments before- but probably not to you?)
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Jeane, that’s pretty funny. At least she paid the fee! Wow, I want to know the story of the person with the shopping cart who borrowed 100 books all at once! I don’t think you have mentioned that story here before 🙂
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Wow, I feel so much better now when it comes to my own library use (and overdue use). Maybe a few books sat under a bed for….um….a few generations? I am not sure how you could possibly amass such a fine. I am pretty good at getting books back on time, but that is also probably why I am so bad at not finishing (and sometimes not even getting a chance to start! a library book). It has been wet wet wet here too.
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Danielle, I know, my $10 seems minuscule in comparison! I’m pretty good at getting things back on time but now and then it just can’t be helped. It looks like we’ll get to dry out a little today but more rain Friday. Dry weekend though even if it will be chilly. Hope you are seeing some sun there!
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6.3 million?? that’s the food budget for many countries! And $10000 in fines??? I mean even if I borrowed 100 books, it would take some effort to reach that $ amount for fines! Unfortunately,I have to agree with Sue’s comments and there are many nefarious ways how people tend to fool the system to make money! Glad you only paid $10….I have never known an a state of being without a fine hanging over my head 😉 but grateful to say that it never reached a mamoth amount!
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cirtnecce, crazy isn’t it? Yeah, Sue is probably right. I think part of being an avid reader and library patron is having overdue fees now and then. I always feel a bit guilty but sometimes it can’t be helped.
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Elementary and preschool teachers and homeschoolers check out the most books at a time in my experience. I’ve had up to 75 (possibly more) when my youngest son was learning to read, and we were checking out all of the skinny readers. Currently I probably have about 50. I check out more than I can read because I like to have choices, and I check out for the whole family. We can have up to 200.
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Rachel, I totally didn’t think of teachers and homeschoolers! They would need to borrow a lot, especially for children of different ages and abilities. You can borrow up to 200 at a time at your library? Wow! I would never be able to keep track of all those books.
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I can’t process that… $10,000! I think the most I’ve known I could borrow at various libraries was 6 items, and that’s always seemed plenty except when you want to borrow CDs and DVDs too. First I couldn’t imagine having 100 but then if it’s a possibility to have that many then I suppose if you’ve many books already they could get lost amongst them?
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Charlie, I know it’s incredible isn’t it? I feel like keeping track of the 5-6 books I do have out at any given time is hard enough I can’t imagine 100!
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I always remember to update my library books online if I need to extend the return date, but I suppose those fines may have been racked up before readers could do that.
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piningforthewest, I do that too but when I have reached my renewal limit and can’t change the date any longer, now and then a book gets returned late. 🙂
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