4 ms·

Between not paying fines and not paying fines, of course people are going to choose to not pay fines.

• geofft 7y ago
  But that's not the choice, the choice is between paying the fine or being unable to use the library. The whole idea behind fines is that 1) imposing fines motivates people to return books on time and 2) disabling future borrowing motivates people to pay the fine, thereby making the motivation from 1 actually work. I don't think it's an "of course" level of obviousness that this scheme doesn't work in practice—otherwise libraries would have abandoned fines long ago.
  • spullara 7y ago
    So we know how much the library was worth to them now. Instead they should offer a subscription service that is free as long as you have fewer than N books checked out.
  • baddox 7y ago
    But according to your logic, you would also oppose the first library doing this by making the same claim: that if it were obvious, it would have happened long ago. Maybe it’s the case that the library has new information and/or is committed to a new or reinvigorated mission, and that this decision is an obvious step toward accomplishing that mission.
• baddox 7y ago
  And for the library, the choice was between not collecting fines and not getting the books back, or not collecting fines and getting the books back. So even in a model where the library is being run as a business, this is a better outcome. But, in a crazy model where the goal of the library is to provide access to books for free, this new system seems like an even bigger improvement!