A brief commentary on libraries and book fines
Library fines, as many of us know, are some of the most annoying things on the planet. I haven’t met any librarians who have said they were all that important, yet libraries continue doling them out like it’s the new hottest thing to do. Library fines, ostensibly, have one or both of the following as their goal: to deter individuals from stealing books, or to punish those who do steal. In this article—half-seriously, half-satirically—I hope to demonstrate that neither of these goals is sufficient to justify the imposition of fines...