Our library ran the expenses and realized we spent about 3,000$ MORE than what we got back in trying to collect late fees. So? We dropped them completely. No late fees. Period.
If you keep a book, it auto renews two times. Then it comes up as overdue. If your overdue items exceed a certain amount, your account freezes. You can’t use any of the local libraries anymore until you return the items or claim them lost and pay for them. If someone else is waiting for the book, you can’t renew. Its that simple.
And guess what. Not only did we save money, but we /got more materials back/. More materials were turned in than declared lost as compared to before. There was no stigma to it. If you had already paid for the item, the money was credited back to you.
Because the people late fees actually affected were children and elderly adults - people unable to regularly get to the library. And the stigma of late items was dropped. Attitude and mindset are important.
we still have no late fees. And we are considered to be one of the top public systems in our state. People from out of state PAY to get library cards for a year because our online Overdrive system is amazing, and we have a ton of partnerships and interlibrary loan systems in place. AND we suffer less losses of both materials and patrons due to our “no late fee” policy.
Serve your public. Don’t belittle them.
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