People can already do this if they want. Nothing stops you from checking out the max number of books and never coming back.
Most libraries have discovered that late fees discourage people from returning books when they forget, lose them, etc. The longer the book is out the higher the fee. The higher the fee the more likely that person will decide library membership is a lost cause and decide to never return (or use someone else's membership).
Eliminating late fees increases the overall rate of books returned vs stolen.
Except for some dystopian societies where warrants are taken out for not returning two books [0].
[0]: https://www.wilx.com/content/news/Charlotte-woman-gets-warra...
By removing fines, you get good press and an easier message to convey. Really, the library just wants the books back, the fines aren't meant to generate revenue.
If someone's going to just take 10 books from the library, they'll take them regardless. Just like grocery stores, a librarian isn't going to pursue you if you set the alarm off; the alarm's there to remind honest people that they forgot to check a book out.
* Late fees disproportionally affected the poor
* Dropping fees brought with it an uptick in library attendance
* Libraries spent more money collecting the fees than they received from the fees
[0]: https://www.npr.org/2019/11/30/781374759/we-wanted-our-patro...
This would probably end up costing them even more than just losing the books and buying new ones and in the process creating a new bureaucracy of injustices.
Replacement fees, which still exist.
> Seems like instead they could've created a program which verifies inability to pay fine and waves them for people who legitimately can't pay it
That would cost more than eliminating late fees entirely, which other public library systems have proven works to improve returns. More expensive, less proven, what's not to like?
You can't check out new books until you return the ones you have. So people have a strong incentive to return books if they want to continue using the library.
Their policy works like this (just looked):
14 days overdue: library card blocked
28 days overdue: library card blocked, billed replacement cost of overdue items
42 days overdue: your account sent to collection agency + $10 collections fee, the latter of which must be paid to unblock your card.
You can also extend how long you're checking out the items online by a decent amount, like 2 or 3 extensions I think. You can hang end up hanging on to what you've checked out for several months before it has to go back, as long as you're staying on top of it.
Works for me, at least. I've always been terrible with things that have late fees (in fact I had some late fees at that library from the previous system). But I've had no issues or fees since they changed to this model, despite continuing to be late in my returns (just not 28 days late).
Edit: I re-read the NYPL policy; they waive replacement fees when items are returned and you can claim a refund of your paid replacement fee if you return the item within 90 days.
>Pretending they don't exist is generally not a good strategy.
I agree, but I think the problem is typically very much over-stated. It sort of reminds me of the sort of fearful stuff I heard from my grandparents about pot smokers you know?
>That's not to say that we shouldn't experiment with different options, and these types of programs are worth trying if only to gather some data.
Yes! Agreed. Punishing people and levying fees isn't great, and experiments like these will either tell us that they were necessary, suggest something else will work, or show us that we can just stop. Its a small thing, but I think a world without library fees would be better, and I'm glad some folks are taking a stab at it.
The library would then probably have to process and store sensitive financial information on those who apply for fee waivers in order to determine who legitimately qualifies. I'd guess that the costs of doing that in an adequately secure manner would be more than the fines they would get from from the people who applied for waivers and were rejected.
Similar but slightly different: what stops you from borrowing a few books and then keeping them, not for forever, but for an unreasonably long time?
Physical books are a limited resource, and others might like access to them. (It's the same reasoning as for parking meters and 2-hour parking: make sure someone else gets a turn.)
Without any time limit on books, the only thing motivating you to return a book is that you need some other book, which might happen weeks later or maybe 6 months later.