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 on individuals.
I’ll start with the first view, the idea that fines act to deter individuals from stealing from the library. If library fines are there to deter individuals from stealing books from the library, I would ask two questions. Why is the imposition of fines the deterrent chosen, and how is the amount fined determined? The first question—why fines rather than anything else—I think is a pretty compelling objection.
Things are stolen all of the time—theoretically, you could steal staplers, papers, pens, books (without checking them out) or any number of possible items in a library. When those things are stolen, the library does not impose fines—instead, it most likely follows standard procedures of reporting and investigating theft if they care enough about the lost item.
I would be willing to bet that if these things were stolen—that is, taken by an individual without the knowledge of the library and never returned—then the library would neither report them stolen nor punish the individuals who stole them, because that would require knowledge of both. A more effective deterrent from theft might be video cameras in the library, or more vigilant assistants in the library who look out for theft.
But because the library only imposes fines with regards to books checked out from the library, we might be inclined to treat those books as a special case where fines act as a unique deterrent.
This view seems incorrect to me for one reason: People already take books and don’t return them, else there would be no reason to deter anything at all. The theft of books seems like an inevitability. The only question, then, should become the efficiency of our responses to that theft. But obviously fines are not a perfect deterrent.
The second possible justification for fines is that they punish individuals who have not returned books to the library.
If we accept this view, then we implicitly cast librarians and all who collect fines at libraries as fundamentally malicious, veritable Fafners hoarding their books as gold, waiting to breathe fire on any who dare trespass.
The irony of this is that most librarians I have met in my life are wonderful people—kind, helpful, and who often care about getting people to read. Rarely do I look at a librarian and think, “I bet they really just want to ruin my day by fining me.”
However, the view of fines-as-punishment in fact justifies a punishment placed on people for reading: if an individual with late fees continues reading the late book, notwithstanding the fees, then the library fines become fines imposed because that individual is reading—just not at the time or place the library would like them to.
Viewing fines as punishment makes the public good of literacy and reading contingent to that reading being done in certain spaces, a view which I’m not certain many librarians would be happy to accept.
There are alternatives to our current system, though.
The one I have heard people talk about and which I am partial toward is to replace the current fine structure with a structure which would enable a patron to check out a book (or several) for any period of time until someone else desires to use that book.
This is appealing to me for several reasons, chief among which are the freedom it gives to library users (“Use this book as long as you need—we’ll let you know if somebody else needs it”) and the lack of arbitrary and administrative oversight which we otherwise find with libraries (“Use this book for a period of 14.75 days, we will not let you know if anyone else needs it, and if you do not return it we will charge you for it as if you have committed a crime, with no appeals system”).
Some libraries have adapted a model where they continue imposing fines but occasionally offer “fine amnesties,” where they forgive all late fees on all patrons’ accounts (generally these do not cover fines for missing books).
These have been done at libraries ranging from Annville Library in Pennsylvania to the Berkeley Public Library to entire library systems as large as the Chicago Public Library.
If the Chicago library system, which deals with many thousands more books and transactions than the Collins Memorial Library does, can afford this (even amidst continuous budget cuts), then I don’t see why our own library couldn’t do the same thing routinely as a sign of good faith to the campus community.
There are those who will of course fear the anarchy where individuals are responsible for their own choices, where they cooperate with each other and share the books they need.
There will likewise be those defenders of the austere and august tradition of punishing those who read for a longer period of time than the library said they were allowed to.
There will finally be those who cling to the order of the present system, who willfully desire that fines be imposed on all who keep a book for two more days than they were allowed to, or a week, or a month, despite no other patrons desiring the book. To them, I would point out that they have nothing to lose by trying the new system but a couple of dollars they were so intent on giving to the library in the first place.