Forgetting to deliver a book for weeks no longer costs additional money in many libraries. More than half of the libraries in the Netherlands have lifted the fine in some way. With over 30 percent of libraries, you no longer pay any fines.
Additionally, more than a quarter of libraries refuse to pay fines to some of their members, such as children or people with Plus subscriptions, according to one inventory.
Librarian Mark Deckers collected the numbers. It followed the rise of free libraries for years. “Books also go back to the library if there are no penalties,” he says.
20 cents a day
In 2014, the first libraries began abolishing fines. More and more have been added in recent years. Among other things, the library in Zutphen waived fines. There it cost 20 cents a day and a book was returned too late, 50 euros maximum.
“Especially here in Zutphen, there are families whose financial situation is not easy. “Sometimes they have to expect hefty fines, especially if they have a lot of kids who turn in books too late,” says Barbara Deuss of the Bieb library association at BIJ.
“Sometimes they stopped coming so they wouldn’t have to pay the fines. We don’t want that because we really want everyone to keep visiting us.”
Most books are delivered, even if fines are not required. “Until now, we were just getting all the books back. In the past, books were sometimes stolen when people were banned due to high fines. This is no longer the case,” says Deuss.
If a book has not been returned for months, an email will be sent requesting that the book be returned. If someone still doesn’t return the book, they’ll get a recommendation to buy the book.
Loss of Income
Fines also generate income. For this reason, some libraries adhere to penalties. “It should be possible within the budget, but now we can manage without that income,” Deuss says. “We also tied a campaign to it and gained more members as a result.”
Deckers estimates that libraries earn around 10 million euros a year from fines. “It’s 2 to 3 percent of the budget and libraries can find a solution to that.”
guess
In recent years, some schools have also stopped issuing fines to students who turn in borrowed books late.
Yet library fines are disappearing more slowly than Deckers expected. In 2017, he predicted that all libraries will be free this year. So that didn’t happen.
“Libraries have not been easy with many budget cuts. Sometimes they had other priorities,” says Deckers. He expects fines to be waived in more places in the near future.
Source: NOS
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
