More often than not people have an irrational fear of
libraries. They feel like you have to be as quiet as a field mouse inside one
at all times, that library staff have better things to do than wait on you
signing out books and some higher power help you if you lose or damage a book
while it’s on loan to you. For the most part none of these things are true.
Most modern libraries tolerate some level of noise within their space. Many
academic libraries will have reserved ‘quiet’ areas, but they are generally
well labeled and far away from the high traffic areas. Library staff will
always be able to help you, or at least refer you to someone who can help you,
especially in terms of signing out books; fundamentally it’s what we are paid
to do. Finally, in terms of damaging books or losing books, most libraries are
very understanding of these situations. When books are damaged, as long as you
come clean about it most places have an in house repair service that they will
send it to free of charge. If a book is lost or overdue, then yes generally a
fine is levied that has to be paid.
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| It usually isn't like this. |
Once you get a fine, the worst thing you can do is not pay
it. This is especially true with academic libraries which usually have the
authority to mess up your school experience in all kinds of ways. Where I am,
once a fine gets over a large enough or has been hanging around long enough we
suspend access to the library account, but more importantly the school account.
While you are still able to log into school computers you can’t access your
grades or order transcripts. The majority of people (sadly) can get by without
access to their library accounts, but they usually can’t handle the stress of
not knowing what their grades are.
If this happens, the library (and eventually the University)
does everything within its power to contact the individual and let them know
what happened. We are more concerned with recouping potential losses than we
are with blocking a student’s academic resources. Infrequently, students do
fall through the cracks, either they graduate and don’t update their contact
info, they drop out and move away, something like that. When that happens is
when the real problems begin.
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| It does occasionally get to be like this though. |
In this case, there was a patron who had graduated over five
years ago and was trying to get a transcript. This transcript was the final
remaining document to fulfill the terms of a conditional job offer. They had been waiting on it for months and
finally the University had tracked them down to let them know why they weren’t
releasing the transcript, but only told them that they had ‘library fines’. As
it turns out the fines were related to a book that had been declared lost.
Obviously the patron was very upset at having not been contacted about it for
so long, and that it has held up the critical transcript.
I was left to explain that unfortunately sometimes we are
unable to contact the patron in a timely manner, although ultimately it is up
to them to settle accounts. Anyone who has ever dealt with unpaid fees knows
that the logic of ‘If I don’t see/hear it, it doesn’t exist’ doesn’t work very
well. Fortunately the patron was reasonably understanding of the whole matter.
They weren’t happy that they hadn’t been contacted and that this fine was
holding everything up, but in the end they paid the fine to the library.
Having a fine for many years sitting around certainly
doesn’t display the Library in very good light. Length of fine outstanding
however is no excuse for not paying it, nor does it provide a logic for the
fine to simply be waived, especially when it is a book replacement. To put it
in context, if an institution instead owed
an individual money, I’m sure there would be outrage if they simply said
after many years they were just keeping it. Each provincial government have a
whole department set up to administer unclaimed Estates, keeping the money in a
big pool in case someone comes to claim their share. While recently there may
have been a precedent set up for a statute of limitation on heinous crimes,
there is no such precedent on monies, fines or otherwise.
So in the end, Library fines are sort of like the
Government, you can try to ignore them, but they always ‘fined’ you. Even if it
takes ten years to do it, we’ll get our money back; we’re essentially the
Mounties of the Academic World ‘we always get our patron’.
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| Except replace the gun with a pen, and the angry looking renegade with a student, and the hat with... Fine we're NOTHING like the mounties. :( |
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