19 ms·

New York Public Library ends all late fees

300 points by EastOfTruth 5y ago

funOtter 5y ago
Since my library started this policy I have noticed that average time to get desirable but limited materials (like video games) have gone way up, because nobody cares to return them in the allotted time.
nwhatt 5y ago
Another classic Seinfeld plot becomes irrelevant.
amichail 5y ago
So how do they encourage people to return library materials on time or soon thereafter?
- xyzelement 5y ago
  Interesting question. The article references that Chicago saw an improvement in return rates although it doesn't really explain how that happened to justify that it's not one time or spurious thing. I would be curious how this pans out over time and whether libraries would change course of this causes a problem. Given that the change was pushed through in the name of equality, there's probably not much that would ever cause it to be undone. Hopefully it works well.
- lalaland1125 5y ago
  You can't check out new material until you return the materials that you already have. From an article on Chicago's new system: | Chicago's cardholders have seven days past the due date to return items before their card is blocked from use. In the case of lost materials, patrons must pay to replace the book or provide a new copy of the same edition. | | "We're really putting the focus on the physical object that needs to come back to the library rather than the revenue stream — that really wasn't a revenue stream," Telli said.
  - monksy 5y ago
    > "We're really putting the focus on the physical object that needs to come back to the library rather than the revenue stream — that really wasn't a revenue stream," Telli said. That's not at all how they sold it. They claimed at the time .. fees for late book returns were regressive and harmed lower income peoples while discouraging them from checking out books/continuing to check them out.
    - pessimizer 5y ago
      They still claim that. The change isn't limited to one implication or effect.
- burkaman 5y ago
  > And these increasingly popular initiatives have been proven successful: After the policy change, Chicago public libraries saw an increase in returned materials as well as library card renewals, according to a previous NPR report. It seems like fines are not very effective at getting people to return stuff on time, but they are effective at getting people to never return things and stop going to the library once they have a few late books, because they can't afford the fines. To directly answer your question, they can just ask people to please be respectful and try to return things on time, and they can stop people from checking out new items if they have too many overdue ones. The problem isn't big enough to warrant stronger measures than that.
- runawaybottle 5y ago
  Every book can be digitally taken out.
  - ejb999 5y ago
    no they can't
    - runawaybottle 5y ago
      What the hell do we do in this industry if that’s not the case?
- bitwize 5y ago
  Does it matter? Times change, and we're now living in an era where "petty theft is wrong" is a sinfully bourgeois thing to believe because it disproportionately affects the poor. If someone steals your bike, be happy that it brought someone else joy.
  - hnaccount141 5y ago
    If someone wants to steal a book, why would they come back and pay the fine? The only people who would pay the fine are the ones who want to continue checking out books, so preventing them from doing so if they have a late book is incentive enough. This is a pragmatic move by the libraries. The reality of fines is that they don't prevent bad actors from stealing books. All they accomplish is disincentivizing those who miss their due date (whether intentionally or not) from bringing the book back. Chicago did a similar thing a couple years back and actually saw an increase in returns. https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2019/10/30/20940677/chicago-public-library-no-fines-book-returns-increase-lightfoot https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2019/10/30/20940677/chicag...
- joe5150 5y ago
  Fines don't necessarily encourage returns, for one thing.
- jacobsenscott 5y ago
  Isn't "on time" when you are done with the book? I don't use the library because I can't finish a book in the allotted time (two week I think, but haven't been there in a long time). Often you can't renew because there is a wait list. I'm probably a slow reader, but I also have a job, kids, etc. If our library switched to this policy I would definitely use it and probably get the books back in 4 weeks. The "encouragement" would be that I want to read another book, and I don't need to pay a fine. As it is I just buy books on kindle so I can read them at my pace.
lalaland1125 5y ago
This seems like an obvious improvement. There is no need for late fees when libraries can use much simpler and more effective incentives like not allowing you to check out more books until you return the ones you have. Think about it rationally: If you are poor with an overdue book, you really have no incentive to return it. You can't pay the fee so even if you return it you won't get use of the library. With the new system you get immediate use of the library once you turn in your overdue book. The benefit for returning books is much higher.
- nickysielicki 5y ago
  Think about it rationally: If you have a book you haven’t finished but want to, there’s no incentive to return it now. Check out as many books as you’d like, return them at your leisure, and screw anyone who has any concurrent interests in any of those books.
  - blendergeek 5y ago
    > Think about it rationally: I will try to do that. > If you have a book you haven’t finished but want to, there’s no incentive to return it now. Check out as many books as you’d like, return them at your leisure, and screw anyone who has any concurrent interests in any of those books. Under the new system, if you have any overdue books, you cannot check out new books. So you cannot "check out as many books as you would like". You can return them at your leisure. A system of library fines works best under the following conditions: * For most people who use the library, there is only a very small subset of books that interest them. * And these people want to keep the books long term. * And these people can afford library fines. People who are interested in only a few books, want them long term, and can afford library fines generally buy their books at book stores rather than stealing them from libraries. The system recently adopted by New York City will still work if most library users * are interested in a selection of books greater than the maximum number that can be checked out at a time * and regularly want to switch out books * and cannot afford library fines I will assume that the New York City Library System knows who their users are. Generally people who use public library fit into the poorer class of people and the people who need the library the most are those who cannot afford books and therefore regularly checkout new books. For these people, the system adopted by the New York Library will still motivate them to return their books. Yes, some people who can afford books will steal from the library. Well, if they ever want to check out new books, they will need to return their old books (and maybe the New York Library has done the math and decided that a small enough percentage of the population is book thieves that this will work)
faridelnasire 5y ago
I understand the problem, not sure I agree with the solution yet, but maybe I'm missing something. Not really sure how else they can make sure people don't just borrow 10 books and never come back. Seems like instead they could've created a program which verifies inability to pay fine and waves them for people who legitimately can't pay it, but maybe they're looking at some data we don't have access to.
- lalaland1125 5y ago
  > Not really sure how else they can make sure people don't just borrow 10 books and never come back. You can't check out new books until you return the ones you have. So people have a strong incentive to return books if they want to continue using the library.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  > verifies inability to pay fine This would probably end up costing them even more than just losing the books and buying new ones and in the process creating a new bureaucracy of injustices.
- calt 5y ago
  There's nothing that previously stopped people from doing that. A fine at the library just prevents you from further use of the library.
- jackson1442 5y ago
  There's a common trope of people being scared of going back to the library because they've racked up hundreds of dollars in fines. This is a rare occurrence, most libraries I've seen have a fine cap of about $5, but I have a feeling that's not something most people are aware of. By removing fines, you get good press and an easier message to convey. Really, the library just wants the books back, the fines aren't meant to generate revenue. If someone's going to just take 10 books from the library, they'll take them regardless. Just like grocery stores, a librarian isn't going to pursue you if you set the alarm off; the alarm's there to remind honest people that they forgot to check a book out.
- lapetitejort 5y ago
m0ngr31 5y ago
Will Mr. Bookman be out of a job?
joe5150 5y ago
Good deal. Library fines create more problems than they solve.
amichail 5y ago
So what happens when someone dies? The books they borrowed need not be returned ever?
- markdown 5y ago
  That question exists whether or not you charge late fees, so it isn't relevant to this discussion.
- dvdhnt 5y ago
  Probably whatever happened when someone borrowed books and died before they decided to remove late fees. I'm assuming your account is closed and the books should be returned. As a kid, I was told you can drop local library books into the mail and they'd be sent back to the library.
  - jimmyvalmer 5y ago
    People who write according to how they speak don't appreciate the aural cues (pauses, inflections) required to pull that off. Impossible to parse: Probably whatever happened when someone borrowed books and died before they decided to remove late fees. Assume context and omit the full clause: Probably whatever happened before the fees were waived.
- matt_heimer 5y ago
  Because previously people were worried about the library fines of a dead person and rushed those books back? No, now they don't have to worry about getting hassled about fines if they return the books.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > So what happens when someone dies? The books they borrowed need not be returned ever? Presumably, the replacement fee gets charged if they aren't returned, but collecting is difficult. Same as what happens now, mostly.
riffic 5y ago
little known fact about the New York Public Library is that it's set up as a non-governmental nonprofit entity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Public_Library https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Public_Library
billfor 5y ago
You are still subject to a replacement fee (automatically charged) if you really don't return the book: https://www.nypl.org/help/borrowing-materials/library-fines-and-fees https://www.nypl.org/help/borrowing-materials/library-fines-...
- breckenedge 5y ago
  Wow and only a 30 day limit: Items are declared lost after they have been overdue for 30 days and a replacement fee will be charged to the patron account.
  - OldHand2018 5y ago
    If it is like the Chicago policy, you get “unlimited” automatic renewals and a book only becomes overdue when someone else requests the book. You get an email telling you in advance of the overdue date that you have to actually return the book.
- jacobsenscott 5y ago
  The fee is assigned to your account, but you don't actually pay anything (no money is actually exchanged). If you return the item after 30 days the fee is cleared. Even if you pay the fee and return the item within 90 days the fee is refunded. You need to accumulate $100 in fees before they suspend borrowing. It all seems very fair to me.
ejb999 5y ago
great, now you can go to the library, take out rare books and sell them on eBay.
- lalaland1125 5y ago
  How does removing late fees make it easier to do that?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
KingMachiavelli 5y ago
This only works well if the library always has an excess number of copies of books which probably isn't too hard to accomplish. I remember far too many school projects where many books would already be checked out. Imposing a fee for keeping he book too long allowed more people to have the book in a given amount of time. I guess some school projects (middle & high school level) may still require citing a book or two but it probably isn't a very big issue. Adults that really want $X book will just buy it used on Amazon.
throwaway158497 5y ago
Slightly off topic, does anyone know how to go about obtaining an API for library books or oreillly books? It's funny that my libby/overdrive app lets me checkout books but cannot do a basic functionality like sending me a notification to read at 9pm every night or open a random chapter from the book and send as notification, so that I can start reading etc I am at a loss of how to obtain initial set of books and hence need an API to my library (San Jose Public Library)
- OldHand2018 5y ago
  https://openlibrary.org/developers/dumps https://openlibrary.org/developers/dumps That’s a big download, BTW
  - throwaway158497 5y ago
    Seems like I still need to create a login and password. Latest tech books are not available here.
vnchr 5y ago
One reason for late fees I’m not seeing in the comments is high demand inventory management. In small libraries, a popular title might have a long waitlist due to a smaller supply as a budgetary constraint. The late fees correspond with a limited borrowing timeframe so that the popular item gets utilized by more patrons. This seems fair to me, though I appreciate there is another consequence of late fees that others here consider advocating against.
- tehjoker 5y ago
  You could try giving rewards/achievements to patrons that have a record of on-time return instead of punishing people (e.g. extended "okay" borrowing windows, small discount at the café etc).
zxcvbn4038 5y ago
There was a girl in my high school who really messed up her freshmen year - partied too much and flunked every class, pretty much no way back for her. So she transferred schools to another county and re-enrolled as a freshmen. But before she left she purposefully incurred a five cent library fine. The school refused to send her transcripts anywhere until she paid it. Clever girl.
- gruez 5y ago
  I don't get it. 1. AFAIK colleges can't send transcripts to people without your permission, so it's unclear what she's trying to prevent. 2. If she's trying to get a job and the place she's applying to cares about GPA, then chances are they're not going to accept the "I can't get a transcript because I didn't pay a 5 cent fine" excuse. If anything people would consider it a red flag. What type of a responsible adult can't pay a 5 cent fine? 3. similar applies to applying for graduate school, except that they're probably even more strict about transcripts.
  - jjjjoe 5y ago
    The new high (secondary) school treated her like a new student, not one with a year of comically poor performance. This isn't about college or university; it's about the last few years of compulsory education, which often set the direction of one's life.
- defen 5y ago
  This sounds suspiciously like the "overpay your traffic ticket by a dollar and then don't cash the refund check so the transaction never closes and you don't get points on your license" urban legend.
reilly3000 5y ago
My city’s library has done this for about 5 years. I definitely patronize the library more. Why have overworked librarians have to handle cash and face arguments? The data is clear that it has significantly boosted utilization without impacting hold times. Fine income accounted for less than 1% of a library’s budget. It just makes sense.
geodel 5y ago
Same thing has been done Charlotte, Mecklenburg Public library. So far behavior change for me is instead of checking in very often if I am running late to checking weekly. Decide up if I am really gonna read those books then renew else return on weekend.
jlturner 5y ago
Oakland Public Library did something similar awhile back; it turns out late fees piling up discourages patron attendance. Source: https://oaklandlibrary.org/news/2019/05/opl-eliminates-overdue-fines-effective-july-1 https://oaklandlibrary.org/news/2019/05/opl-eliminates-overd...
cleblanc 5y ago
ctrl+f "Free books" :eyeroll:
akerl_ 5y ago
I’m fascinated (read: horrified) how many people in the comments here are litigating all the ways that this change is horrible / promotes abuse of the library system / is the end of civilization. We have actual, practical examples of many library systems who have made this change. In every case I’m aware of, the result was an increase in desirable behaviors (like more people borrowing books and a higher percentage of books being returned), with no increase in undesirable behaviors (like theft of books). To all the folks here decrying how this is horrible, can you cite any example of a library where this was done and it went badly?
- harshreality 5y ago
  I would like to see stats of how this affected book queue wait times and loan patterns, particularly for books which an entire metro library system only has one or two copies of. They say it increases return rates overall. If that's true, it's good, but let's try to understand why, and what secondary consequences there might be. Nothing was stopping those people from returning the books and walking out without paying their outstanding fines. They could use the exterior book drop (don't libraries still have those?) The idea seems to be that the experience of going to a library with fines outstanding is a kind of intrinsic aversive punishment; you feel guilty slinking into (or around) the library with overdue books, so you try to avoid that by not returning the books. You might even try to hide the books in your house so you don't see them and aren't reminded of your guilt. But it's not the doing away with the fines that matters, it's changing the social dynamic so that nobody ever feels guilty; it's no longer a faux pas not to return books when you should, because there's no longer any punishment. The interaction becomes entirely positive: without fines to think about anymore, you queue all the books you want to read, when one or two become available the cost of checking them out is returning the books you've read and have delayed returning. A typical reason someone might get stuck in library fine purgatory: they queue up a bunch of books, none are available before their old books are due back, and they simply didn't have motivation to go to the library solely to return their existing books. Once they have a fine they don't want to pay and they can't check out the new books, there's no motivation for them to ever return. Historically, there would be: people tended to have a sense of duty and shame so that they'd do the right thing and return the book even if it made them feel bad and they couldn't afford the fees and couldn't use the library anymore, but now I guess nobody has that kind of super-ego anymore. Removing fines encourages those people to re-engage with the library system, but I expect it messes with book queues and makes them worse. Libraries were already struggling to budget book acquisitions. Increasing demand by changing policies so more people use the libraries will only make it more difficult to fund book acquisitions to meet demand.
roamerz 5y ago
I think a better solution would be to keep the late fees then after they totaled the cost of a new book send a bill to the borrower for the cost of the book plus and added 50% handling fee. If that is not paid within x number of days sell the invoice to a credit collection firm. The people that don't return books are in essence thieves and are impacting legitimate library users abilty to read books. May seem kind of harsh but I grow tired of seeing petty theft and shoplifting going unpunished.
harshreality 5y ago
This may be good according to general stats, equity, etc. However, I'm not concerned about overall book return rates for popular books, which will dominate those stats. What I want to know is how this affects books that I actually use libraries for (and for which libraries are most valuable): expensive or out-of-print books—for which the best alternative is an expensive copy on the new or used market, or some poor scanned copy from internetarchive or the "evil" pirate library whose name shall not be spoken. It seems like this will encourage people to jam up the queue for those books, since someone who rarely goes to the library will have no incentive to ever return it until the next time they want some obscure book. In the general case, it makes the already somewhat unreliable "return date" listed for checked-out items even more unreliable, so all you can do is put yourself in the queue and have no idea when it might actually become available, since there's no longer any incentive for someone to return it on the due date instead of 1 month or 6 months later.
- jjjjoe 5y ago
  Libraries don't let you check out books which can't be replaced economically. You might have heard the word "circulating" in the context of libraries: stuff from Tom Clancy and Harper Lee and Kevin Feige circulate. Out-of-print or rare or college textbooks usually have to be read at the library, where staff discourage you pocketing or photocopying things or whatever.
VonGuard 5y ago
Oakland did this in 2020.
jimmyvalmer 5y ago
As someone who's been taking advantage of NYPL's rakuten-backend (all-digital, kindle-based, automatic returns), this cause for commotion seems silly. I get that poor people don't have kindles, but it's just a matter of time.
cupcake-unicorn 5y ago
Pretty recently (2018-ish?), in Seattle, someone I knew ended up racking up a 100 dollar fine at the Seattle Public Library. What was extremely shocking about this, however, was that the Library at that time felt the need to send it to collections. The scenario one could envision for the outcome of something like this is pretty dystopian. This could well end up damaging someone's credit to the point where they would have trouble finding housing. There probably would have been less repercussions for stealing a book due to what's been going on with SPD and minor crimes like that, which is pretty out of control :/
bastawhiz 5y ago
I used to volunteer at my local library. Every couple years they'd have an amnesty week where you could return overdue books and the fees were waived. In that week, almost HALF of the long-overdue books were returned.
dewarrn1 5y ago
I am reminded of a (probably apocryphal) story about a professor who refused to return a book to the university library: "Any student who wants to read this book, that's a student I want to meet."
TheDudeMan 5y ago
I literally just watched the Seinfeld episode about Jerry's NY Public Library late fee. So weird.
- arrakis2021 5y ago
  Canstanzya
stormdennis 5y ago
When I was a user of public libraries it used to be awkward to get to them, after work, before closing time. So I paid a lot of late fees. It used to bug me that late fees were waived for people on benefits then. There are just so many situations where something like this is the case. I often wonder how much the value of all these hidden benefits amount to. They're never considered when there's a discussion of benefit rates.
jayzalowitz 5y ago
The mountain view library is apparently in such dire straights that they once sent a late fee of mine from a google internship to a collection agency. (over a $10 book) At least new york cares about people who don't have means, and seems to fund their libraries.
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
Recently returned to the library when I discovered they have ebooks now. Call me poor but the kind of history books that I like to read are €30-50.
harvie 5y ago
They can suspend your ability to borrow books for one day per each week of being late. Providing slight incentive to return, without preventing low-income people from educating themselves. Recently late? No more books for you until you return them. Been late for month? No books for you this week. Been late for year? No books for you this month and a half. (This should NOT be multiplied by number of books late)
gadders 5y ago
What's the difference between borrowing a book forever and stealing one?
fractal618 5y ago
I love libraries
Grakel 5y ago
This is a good move when the cost of printing another copy is extremely low with today's technology. I think the old policy was created when the book itself was valuable or priceless.

300 points by EastOfTruth 5y ago

Since my library started this policy I have noticed that average time to get desirable but limited materials (like video games) have gone way up, because nobody cares to return them in the allotted time.

nwhatt 5y ago

Another classic Seinfeld plot becomes irrelevant.

amichail 5y ago

So how do they encourage people to return library materials on time or soon thereafter?

xyzelement 5y ago
Interesting question. The article references that Chicago saw an improvement in return rates although it doesn't really explain how that happened to justify that it's not one time or spurious thing. I would be curious how this pans out over time and whether libraries would change course of this causes a problem. Given that the change was pushed through in the name of equality, there's probably not much that would ever cause it to be undone. Hopefully it works well.
lalaland1125 5y ago
You can't check out new material until you return the materials that you already have. From an article on Chicago's new system: | Chicago's cardholders have seven days past the due date to return items before their card is blocked from use. In the case of lost materials, patrons must pay to replace the book or provide a new copy of the same edition. | | "We're really putting the focus on the physical object that needs to come back to the library rather than the revenue stream — that really wasn't a revenue stream," Telli said.
- monksy 5y ago
  > "We're really putting the focus on the physical object that needs to come back to the library rather than the revenue stream — that really wasn't a revenue stream," Telli said. That's not at all how they sold it. They claimed at the time .. fees for late book returns were regressive and harmed lower income peoples while discouraging them from checking out books/continuing to check them out.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    They still claim that. The change isn't limited to one implication or effect.
burkaman 5y ago
> And these increasingly popular initiatives have been proven successful: After the policy change, Chicago public libraries saw an increase in returned materials as well as library card renewals, according to a previous NPR report. It seems like fines are not very effective at getting people to return stuff on time, but they are effective at getting people to never return things and stop going to the library once they have a few late books, because they can't afford the fines. To directly answer your question, they can just ask people to please be respectful and try to return things on time, and they can stop people from checking out new items if they have too many overdue ones. The problem isn't big enough to warrant stronger measures than that.
runawaybottle 5y ago
Every book can be digitally taken out.
- ejb999 5y ago
  no they can't
  - runawaybottle 5y ago
    What the hell do we do in this industry if that’s not the case?
bitwize 5y ago
Does it matter? Times change, and we're now living in an era where "petty theft is wrong" is a sinfully bourgeois thing to believe because it disproportionately affects the poor. If someone steals your bike, be happy that it brought someone else joy.
- hnaccount141 5y ago
  If someone wants to steal a book, why would they come back and pay the fine? The only people who would pay the fine are the ones who want to continue checking out books, so preventing them from doing so if they have a late book is incentive enough. This is a pragmatic move by the libraries. The reality of fines is that they don't prevent bad actors from stealing books. All they accomplish is disincentivizing those who miss their due date (whether intentionally or not) from bringing the book back. Chicago did a similar thing a couple years back and actually saw an increase in returns. https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2019/10/30/20940677/chicago-public-library-no-fines-book-returns-increase-lightfoot https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2019/10/30/20940677/chicag...
joe5150 5y ago
Fines don't necessarily encourage returns, for one thing.
jacobsenscott 5y ago
Isn't "on time" when you are done with the book? I don't use the library because I can't finish a book in the allotted time (two week I think, but haven't been there in a long time). Often you can't renew because there is a wait list. I'm probably a slow reader, but I also have a job, kids, etc. If our library switched to this policy I would definitely use it and probably get the books back in 4 weeks. The "encouragement" would be that I want to read another book, and I don't need to pay a fine. As it is I just buy books on kindle so I can read them at my pace.

lalaland1125 5y ago

This seems like an obvious improvement. There is no need for late fees when libraries can use much simpler and more effective incentives like not allowing you to check out more books until you return the ones you have. Think about it rationally: If you are poor with an overdue book, you really have no incentive to return it. You can't pay the fee so even if you return it you won't get use of the library. With the new system you get immediate use of the library once you turn in your overdue book. The benefit for returning books is much higher.

nickysielicki 5y ago
Think about it rationally: If you have a book you haven’t finished but want to, there’s no incentive to return it now. Check out as many books as you’d like, return them at your leisure, and screw anyone who has any concurrent interests in any of those books.
- blendergeek 5y ago
  > Think about it rationally: I will try to do that. > If you have a book you haven’t finished but want to, there’s no incentive to return it now. Check out as many books as you’d like, return them at your leisure, and screw anyone who has any concurrent interests in any of those books. Under the new system, if you have any overdue books, you cannot check out new books. So you cannot "check out as many books as you would like". You can return them at your leisure. A system of library fines works best under the following conditions: * For most people who use the library, there is only a very small subset of books that interest them. * And these people want to keep the books long term. * And these people can afford library fines. People who are interested in only a few books, want them long term, and can afford library fines generally buy their books at book stores rather than stealing them from libraries. The system recently adopted by New York City will still work if most library users * are interested in a selection of books greater than the maximum number that can be checked out at a time * and regularly want to switch out books * and cannot afford library fines I will assume that the New York City Library System knows who their users are. Generally people who use public library fit into the poorer class of people and the people who need the library the most are those who cannot afford books and therefore regularly checkout new books. For these people, the system adopted by the New York Library will still motivate them to return their books. Yes, some people who can afford books will steal from the library. Well, if they ever want to check out new books, they will need to return their old books (and maybe the New York Library has done the math and decided that a small enough percentage of the population is book thieves that this will work)

faridelnasire 5y ago

I understand the problem, not sure I agree with the solution yet, but maybe I'm missing something. Not really sure how else they can make sure people don't just borrow 10 books and never come back. Seems like instead they could've created a program which verifies inability to pay fine and waves them for people who legitimately can't pay it, but maybe they're looking at some data we don't have access to.

lalaland1125 5y ago
> Not really sure how else they can make sure people don't just borrow 10 books and never come back. You can't check out new books until you return the ones you have. So people have a strong incentive to return books if they want to continue using the library.
guerrilla 5y ago
> verifies inability to pay fine This would probably end up costing them even more than just losing the books and buying new ones and in the process creating a new bureaucracy of injustices.
calt 5y ago
There's nothing that previously stopped people from doing that. A fine at the library just prevents you from further use of the library.
jackson1442 5y ago
There's a common trope of people being scared of going back to the library because they've racked up hundreds of dollars in fines. This is a rare occurrence, most libraries I've seen have a fine cap of about $5, but I have a feeling that's not something most people are aware of. By removing fines, you get good press and an easier message to convey. Really, the library just wants the books back, the fines aren't meant to generate revenue. If someone's going to just take 10 books from the library, they'll take them regardless. Just like grocery stores, a librarian isn't going to pursue you if you set the alarm off; the alarm's there to remind honest people that they forgot to check a book out.
lapetitejort 5y ago

m0ngr31 5y ago

Will Mr. Bookman be out of a job?

joe5150 5y ago

Good deal. Library fines create more problems than they solve.

amichail 5y ago

So what happens when someone dies? The books they borrowed need not be returned ever?

markdown 5y ago
That question exists whether or not you charge late fees, so it isn't relevant to this discussion.
dvdhnt 5y ago
Probably whatever happened when someone borrowed books and died before they decided to remove late fees. I'm assuming your account is closed and the books should be returned. As a kid, I was told you can drop local library books into the mail and they'd be sent back to the library.
- jimmyvalmer 5y ago
  People who write according to how they speak don't appreciate the aural cues (pauses, inflections) required to pull that off. Impossible to parse: Probably whatever happened when someone borrowed books and died before they decided to remove late fees. Assume context and omit the full clause: Probably whatever happened before the fees were waived.
matt_heimer 5y ago
Because previously people were worried about the library fines of a dead person and rushed those books back? No, now they don't have to worry about getting hassled about fines if they return the books.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> So what happens when someone dies? The books they borrowed need not be returned ever? Presumably, the replacement fee gets charged if they aren't returned, but collecting is difficult. Same as what happens now, mostly.

riffic 5y ago

little known fact about the New York Public Library is that it's set up as a non-governmental nonprofit entity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Public_Library https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Public_Library

billfor 5y ago

You are still subject to a replacement fee (automatically charged) if you really don't return the book: https://www.nypl.org/help/borrowing-materials/library-fines-and-fees https://www.nypl.org/help/borrowing-materials/library-fines-...

breckenedge 5y ago
Wow and only a 30 day limit: Items are declared lost after they have been overdue for 30 days and a replacement fee will be charged to the patron account.
- OldHand2018 5y ago
  If it is like the Chicago policy, you get “unlimited” automatic renewals and a book only becomes overdue when someone else requests the book. You get an email telling you in advance of the overdue date that you have to actually return the book.
jacobsenscott 5y ago
The fee is assigned to your account, but you don't actually pay anything (no money is actually exchanged). If you return the item after 30 days the fee is cleared. Even if you pay the fee and return the item within 90 days the fee is refunded. You need to accumulate $100 in fees before they suspend borrowing. It all seems very fair to me.

ejb999 5y ago

great, now you can go to the library, take out rare books and sell them on eBay.

lalaland1125 5y ago
How does removing late fees make it easier to do that?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

KingMachiavelli 5y ago

This only works well if the library always has an excess number of copies of books which probably isn't too hard to accomplish. I remember far too many school projects where many books would already be checked out. Imposing a fee for keeping he book too long allowed more people to have the book in a given amount of time. I guess some school projects (middle & high school level) may still require citing a book or two but it probably isn't a very big issue. Adults that really want $X book will just buy it used on Amazon.

throwaway158497 5y ago

Slightly off topic, does anyone know how to go about obtaining an API for library books or oreillly books? It's funny that my libby/overdrive app lets me checkout books but cannot do a basic functionality like sending me a notification to read at 9pm every night or open a random chapter from the book and send as notification, so that I can start reading etc I am at a loss of how to obtain initial set of books and hence need an API to my library (San Jose Public Library)

OldHand2018 5y ago
https://openlibrary.org/developers/dumps https://openlibrary.org/developers/dumps That’s a big download, BTW
- throwaway158497 5y ago
  Seems like I still need to create a login and password. Latest tech books are not available here.

vnchr 5y ago

One reason for late fees I’m not seeing in the comments is high demand inventory management. In small libraries, a popular title might have a long waitlist due to a smaller supply as a budgetary constraint. The late fees correspond with a limited borrowing timeframe so that the popular item gets utilized by more patrons. This seems fair to me, though I appreciate there is another consequence of late fees that others here consider advocating against.

tehjoker 5y ago
You could try giving rewards/achievements to patrons that have a record of on-time return instead of punishing people (e.g. extended "okay" borrowing windows, small discount at the café etc).

zxcvbn4038 5y ago

There was a girl in my high school who really messed up her freshmen year - partied too much and flunked every class, pretty much no way back for her. So she transferred schools to another county and re-enrolled as a freshmen. But before she left she purposefully incurred a five cent library fine. The school refused to send her transcripts anywhere until she paid it. Clever girl.

gruez 5y ago
I don't get it. 1. AFAIK colleges can't send transcripts to people without your permission, so it's unclear what she's trying to prevent. 2. If she's trying to get a job and the place she's applying to cares about GPA, then chances are they're not going to accept the "I can't get a transcript because I didn't pay a 5 cent fine" excuse. If anything people would consider it a red flag. What type of a responsible adult can't pay a 5 cent fine? 3. similar applies to applying for graduate school, except that they're probably even more strict about transcripts.
- jjjjoe 5y ago
  The new high (secondary) school treated her like a new student, not one with a year of comically poor performance. This isn't about college or university; it's about the last few years of compulsory education, which often set the direction of one's life.
defen 5y ago
This sounds suspiciously like the "overpay your traffic ticket by a dollar and then don't cash the refund check so the transaction never closes and you don't get points on your license" urban legend.

reilly3000 5y ago

My city’s library has done this for about 5 years. I definitely patronize the library more. Why have overworked librarians have to handle cash and face arguments? The data is clear that it has significantly boosted utilization without impacting hold times. Fine income accounted for less than 1% of a library’s budget. It just makes sense.

geodel 5y ago

Same thing has been done Charlotte, Mecklenburg Public library. So far behavior change for me is instead of checking in very often if I am running late to checking weekly. Decide up if I am really gonna read those books then renew else return on weekend.

jlturner 5y ago

Oakland Public Library did something similar awhile back; it turns out late fees piling up discourages patron attendance. Source: https://oaklandlibrary.org/news/2019/05/opl-eliminates-overdue-fines-effective-july-1 https://oaklandlibrary.org/news/2019/05/opl-eliminates-overd...

cleblanc 5y ago

ctrl+f "Free books" :eyeroll:

akerl_ 5y ago

I’m fascinated (read: horrified) how many people in the comments here are litigating all the ways that this change is horrible / promotes abuse of the library system / is the end of civilization. We have actual, practical examples of many library systems who have made this change. In every case I’m aware of, the result was an increase in desirable behaviors (like more people borrowing books and a higher percentage of books being returned), with no increase in undesirable behaviors (like theft of books). To all the folks here decrying how this is horrible, can you cite any example of a library where this was done and it went badly?

harshreality 5y ago
I would like to see stats of how this affected book queue wait times and loan patterns, particularly for books which an entire metro library system only has one or two copies of. They say it increases return rates overall. If that's true, it's good, but let's try to understand why, and what secondary consequences there might be. Nothing was stopping those people from returning the books and walking out without paying their outstanding fines. They could use the exterior book drop (don't libraries still have those?) The idea seems to be that the experience of going to a library with fines outstanding is a kind of intrinsic aversive punishment; you feel guilty slinking into (or around) the library with overdue books, so you try to avoid that by not returning the books. You might even try to hide the books in your house so you don't see them and aren't reminded of your guilt. But it's not the doing away with the fines that matters, it's changing the social dynamic so that nobody ever feels guilty; it's no longer a faux pas not to return books when you should, because there's no longer any punishment. The interaction becomes entirely positive: without fines to think about anymore, you queue all the books you want to read, when one or two become available the cost of checking them out is returning the books you've read and have delayed returning. A typical reason someone might get stuck in library fine purgatory: they queue up a bunch of books, none are available before their old books are due back, and they simply didn't have motivation to go to the library solely to return their existing books. Once they have a fine they don't want to pay and they can't check out the new books, there's no motivation for them to ever return. Historically, there would be: people tended to have a sense of duty and shame so that they'd do the right thing and return the book even if it made them feel bad and they couldn't afford the fees and couldn't use the library anymore, but now I guess nobody has that kind of super-ego anymore. Removing fines encourages those people to re-engage with the library system, but I expect it messes with book queues and makes them worse. Libraries were already struggling to budget book acquisitions. Increasing demand by changing policies so more people use the libraries will only make it more difficult to fund book acquisitions to meet demand.

roamerz 5y ago

I think a better solution would be to keep the late fees then after they totaled the cost of a new book send a bill to the borrower for the cost of the book plus and added 50% handling fee. If that is not paid within x number of days sell the invoice to a credit collection firm. The people that don't return books are in essence thieves and are impacting legitimate library users abilty to read books. May seem kind of harsh but I grow tired of seeing petty theft and shoplifting going unpunished.

harshreality 5y ago

This may be good according to general stats, equity, etc. However, I'm not concerned about overall book return rates for popular books, which will dominate those stats. What I want to know is how this affects books that I actually use libraries for (and for which libraries are most valuable): expensive or out-of-print books—for which the best alternative is an expensive copy on the new or used market, or some poor scanned copy from internetarchive or the "evil" pirate library whose name shall not be spoken. It seems like this will encourage people to jam up the queue for those books, since someone who rarely goes to the library will have no incentive to ever return it until the next time they want some obscure book. In the general case, it makes the already somewhat unreliable "return date" listed for checked-out items even more unreliable, so all you can do is put yourself in the queue and have no idea when it might actually become available, since there's no longer any incentive for someone to return it on the due date instead of 1 month or 6 months later.

jjjjoe 5y ago
Libraries don't let you check out books which can't be replaced economically. You might have heard the word "circulating" in the context of libraries: stuff from Tom Clancy and Harper Lee and Kevin Feige circulate. Out-of-print or rare or college textbooks usually have to be read at the library, where staff discourage you pocketing or photocopying things or whatever.

VonGuard 5y ago

Oakland did this in 2020.

jimmyvalmer 5y ago

As someone who's been taking advantage of NYPL's rakuten-backend (all-digital, kindle-based, automatic returns), this cause for commotion seems silly. I get that poor people don't have kindles, but it's just a matter of time.

cupcake-unicorn 5y ago

Pretty recently (2018-ish?), in Seattle, someone I knew ended up racking up a 100 dollar fine at the Seattle Public Library. What was extremely shocking about this, however, was that the Library at that time felt the need to send it to collections. The scenario one could envision for the outcome of something like this is pretty dystopian. This could well end up damaging someone's credit to the point where they would have trouble finding housing. There probably would have been less repercussions for stealing a book due to what's been going on with SPD and minor crimes like that, which is pretty out of control :/

bastawhiz 5y ago

I used to volunteer at my local library. Every couple years they'd have an amnesty week where you could return overdue books and the fees were waived. In that week, almost HALF of the long-overdue books were returned.

dewarrn1 5y ago

I am reminded of a (probably apocryphal) story about a professor who refused to return a book to the university library: "Any student who wants to read this book, that's a student I want to meet."

TheDudeMan 5y ago

I literally just watched the Seinfeld episode about Jerry's NY Public Library late fee. So weird.

arrakis2021 5y ago
Canstanzya

stormdennis 5y ago

When I was a user of public libraries it used to be awkward to get to them, after work, before closing time. So I paid a lot of late fees. It used to bug me that late fees were waived for people on benefits then. There are just so many situations where something like this is the case. I often wonder how much the value of all these hidden benefits amount to. They're never considered when there's a discussion of benefit rates.

jayzalowitz 5y ago

The mountain view library is apparently in such dire straights that they once sent a late fee of mine from a google internship to a collection agency. (over a $10 book) At least new york cares about people who don't have means, and seems to fund their libraries.

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

Recently returned to the library when I discovered they have ebooks now. Call me poor but the kind of history books that I like to read are €30-50.

harvie 5y ago

They can suspend your ability to borrow books for one day per each week of being late. Providing slight incentive to return, without preventing low-income people from educating themselves. Recently late? No more books for you until you return them. Been late for month? No books for you this week. Been late for year? No books for you this month and a half. (This should NOT be multiplied by number of books late)

gadders 5y ago

What's the difference between borrowing a book forever and stealing one?

fractal618 5y ago

I love libraries

Grakel 5y ago

This is a good move when the cost of printing another copy is extremely low with today's technology. I think the old policy was created when the book itself was valuable or priceless.