The City of Holbrook has made the decision to eliminate late fines for overdue library books that are returned at the Holbrook Public Library. Librarian Wendy Skevington stated that it was important for the community. “Our community is in one of the poorest counties in the nation and we are a poor community within that poor county. Our residents are divided sharply between those who are able to meet their financial obligations and those who struggle just to put food on the table. I feel that fines are a barrier to access to library use.”
Last year the city collected approximately $2,800 in fines for fiscal year 2018, with those funds going directly into the general funds and not specifically earmarked for library use. The library will continue to charge for lost items or those damaged beyond repair. For those items the cost of the item plus a $5 processing fee will remain. Materials overdue 30 days are considered lost.
The fees used to be 10 cents per item per day for books unless they were new items, which were 50 cents per day as were audio books and videos. The library already notifies the borrower by mail if an item is overdue by three days, with a second notice sent after an item is 14 days late.
According to Skevington, the library allows up to 25 items to be checked out at a time. This is to encourage continuous reading and to promote strong readers. “The school district only allows the kids to take home one book at a time and you can’t build a reader one book at a time. If a kid doesn’t like a book and you force them through it all you’re doing is deterring the emergence of the literary skills. So you need to be flexible, there needs to be abundance and there needs to be a wide variety.”
She added that this change would encourage kids and adults to return those books, even where they’re late and allow them to get more. The library has over 60,000 items that are available to be checked out by cardholders. “It will allow people who are busy and may have overdues but don’t have the money, to come back to the library the next week.”
It was noted by Skevington that the removal of the overdue fine policy will help ensure continued library access for all cardholders and promote community goodwill.
