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August 9, 2008
Fines for late return of books to public libraries
A habit which is as characteristic of Britain as the weather is being discussed by librarians on their chat site called "Lis- pub- libs"
Here is a typical entry:
Aside from the financial returns and 'discipline' (or incentive) concerns, there is another way to look at fines. From a technical perspective (i.e. related to the way LMS's can handle things), it is possible to think of 'fines' as a 'Repeat Hire Charge' for items for which there was no original hire charge - i.e. books!
Think about, say, a DVD, for which we might charge £1 a day - if the user keeps it overdue, we (try) to charge them another pound a day, normally upto a fixed limit (probably not a limit related to the direct value of the item, but arbitrarily set).
We are not allowed to charge for books in the first place (and I don't advocate that we do!), so we don't have repeat hire charges for them, so we call them 'fines' - fines are simply a special case of repeat hire charges. Effectively, IMHO, we call a spade a 'manually operated digging implement', because we can't call it a spade.
And if the maximum charge is at, or greater than, the cover price of the item (not what we paid for it, nor have spent on processing or handling it), the user's mindset may be If I pay the fine, then I should own it, or I'll only pay a proportion of it's and yes, I have had that said to me.
So if the item is really critical to us (e.g. rare, expensive), what effective recovery methods do we have in place for those, and what do we want to do about the rest?
What is it we really want to achieve?
And here is another
We recently introduced e-notification one day after the item is overdue, based on the fact that it is the customers responsibility to bring their books back on time. We have had a lot of really positive feedback and I am sure that it has contributed to our ongoing increase in issues. However it has also generated comments from customers who are saying well done ... but could do better ... and want an email the day before. I agree it would be a wonderful service improvement if we could offer it but I am slightly concerned on impact on fines income.
At which point Roy Clare (ceo of the Libraries body for the govt, the MLA) popped his head up and offered:
Dear Colleagues,
I have found this a most interesting thread. May I offer the view, born of my experience running a large national museum, that the deciding factor should be quality of service to the consumer? In busy lives we all forget to do things, so the quality of service yardstick suggests that prior notification will win more public hearts and minds than any strategy that tries to extract fines. Really good service will lead to many more users, and - probably - stable revenue from fines, as Hugh suspects, and I agree.
Which produced this response
Aside from the benefit to the customers, I wonder if the impact on fines income targets might be mitigated by the argument that pre-notifications contribute to the corporate "Avoidable Contact" measures?
So we observe that nobody knows what they are trying to achieve, nobody knows what the public actually think and nobody knows what to do and how to do it. Nobody has assessed whether this is an issue which should take priority over others-- and whether action for improvement is needed, or not. No one knows the cost of anything - or its value. However, a huge discussion goes on at public expense, with no visible regard for a need to make an improvement, and everyone has a jolly nice time. Where lies the responsibility for public service in all this?
In fact the Library users group in London (LLL) conducted a very sensible discussion about exactly this subject only a few weeks ago. Why don't Roy and his 'colleagues' go and ask them what they think should be done? It would at least provide a starting point outside the infantile world in which these people live.
Posted by Perkins at August 9, 2008 10:02 AM
Comments
I have been following the list discussion with interest. I am not clear however what this post is trying to achieve. Perhaps this would be more helpful and constructive if it was included in the said discussion on LIS-PUB-LIBS.
Posted by: Alison Barlow at August 9, 2008 3:57 PM
Lis pub libs is a site normally only read by librarians-- this is an open public site. There's a big difference. The public library service belongs to the public, not librarians.
Then the second point that I make repeatedly on this blog-- which is addressed to the public rather than to librarians- is that while nobody is in charge and nobody takes responsibility for the public library service it will never improve. In order to address an issue like this one about fines, someone has to make a proper analysis of the matter and decide what to do and how to do it. This may sound rather militaristic to a librarian, but unless there is an injection of a sense of purpose all that happens is meaningless, rather childish debate, of the kind that has been taking place. You might enjoy reading it, but that is hardly the point, is it?
My experience is that there is absolutely no point in trying to be 'constructive' to groups of public librarians. They simply don't understand, collectively, that the library service is not for their 'interest' and satisfaction, but that they need to face some real management discipline, if they are to improve and survive. That is not a world - or a language- which they recognise, understand and respond to. One might as well be speaking Martian. But the public, generally, understand exactly what is meant.
Public library groups are like a convention of coach drivers sitting in the pub deciding where they will the take the public for a ride next.
Posted by: perkins at August 9, 2008 4:03 PM
And if you wanted to get really worked-up, you could point out that this mailing-list is run by JISC, yet another library related organisation paid for by your hard earned taxes! And to think some people have the cheek to discuss service issues on an email discussion list devoted to such things. Especially when some make the same arguments you do. Whatever next!
Posted by: PW at August 9, 2008 5:06 PM