Public Comment: I-Share Fines and Fees

Comments received regarding the proposals to be considered by the CARLI Board of Directors at their September 2020 meeting: 

Proposal 1: The CARLI Board of Directors shall end for all I-Share Members all fining for overdue materials by January 1, 2021, and similarly encourage non-I-Share CARLI Governing Members to end fining for overdue materials.

Comments: 

• No problem -- as long as we can still implement blocks. Blocks are the only realistic way to pressure patrons to return our overdue items. (July 21, 2020)
• Agreed - this is an important step toward equity. (July 21, 2020)
• We have been doing this for years, and it was my understanding that this was done at the consortium level years ago. I must have been incorrect. (July 21, 2020)
• The only area of disagreement that I have with this is with physical items on reserve. Each library should be able to set its policy on these items to meet local requirements, as they should affect only their own patrons. While it is a wonderful thought that all libraries will be adequately funded to make it feasible to purchase as many copies of these resources as are required, it is also completely unrealistic. I am sympathetic to this situation, and have already removed all non-reserve fines from our local collection. But I am hesitant to support a REQUIREMENT to eliminate local consideration. (July 21, 2020)
• Does this include fines relating to reserves?  We would still like to be able to charge fines related to reserves overdues to our own patrons, as they seem to motivate some problem patrons that will otherwise try to take out 2 hour reserves for days with no consequences.  
  We eliminated other overdue fines years ago and are supportive of this effort in general. (July 21, 2020)
• My institution eliminated fines several years ago, so I support ending fines for overdue books. We do not charge fines for regular circulation or reserves. (July 21, 2020)
• I fully support this proposal, and I thank the Board for bringing it forward for discussion. (July 23, 2020)
• I am fully supportive of this policy (and we already operate in this manner) for most items. I am wondering about applying the policy to all item types though. For example, we do charge a daily overdue fee for equipment such as laptops and graphing calculators. A block doesn't always help in these situations, because they may not care about other library services, and might not need to register or get transcripts for months yet. (July 23, 2020)
• This is a good idea. However, institutions should be able to treat reserve materials differently. (July 24, 2020)
• I applaud this effort and am thankful CARLI is exercising it's leadership on this issue. (July 24, 2020)
• Agree, currently we have overdue fees for a small group of high use collections, but we waive the fees once the item is returned. Removing those fees all together and creating a workflow for blocks on those collections if the are abused are already planned for us. It's an easy change that has consequences that don't financially burden our already struggling students. (July 24, 2020)
• Yes, as long as staff currently handling these processes will not be economically impacted. (July 24, 2020)
• I have discussed this with my management team, and we all support ending fines for overdue materials. (July 28, 2020)
• I agree with the elimination of fines between institutions but not on my own patrons. Items without the "threat" of a fine would not be returned at my institution in many cases. Ex. We lend 3 hour textbooks that have fines if not returned. Students would keep these items until they were billed if there was no threat of a fine (if we actually collect on that fine or not is up to us). (July 29, 2020)
• We only charge overdues for short-term loans (course reserves, media, and time sensitive recalls--course reserve related). Even after contacting an individual and placing a block on their account has--in my experience--not always worked. It is rare that we do have to impose overdue fines, though but these are the two cases in which we do. (July 29, 2020)
• I support this proposal and think it is a good idea. I will however reserve the right to block users who abuse their borrowing privileges with too many overdue books and/or lost materials. (July 30, 2020)
• We do not charge fines at our institution and I am in support of this. However, I could see this being helpful in getting patrons to return specialized items (reserves, textbooks, etc.). (August 4, 2020)
• Approve - We discontinued assessing overdue fines some time ago. (August 4, 2020)
• I fully support this policy and feel it is time to set an equitable policy. (August 6, 2020)
• We support ending fining and would adopt it at our institution if approved. (August 6, 2020)
• YES!!! (August 20, 2020)
• Agreed and support. (August 20, 2020)
• Strongly agree--as long as I retain the authority to charge overdue for reserves. (August 21, 2020)
• I do not recall if I already commented on this proposal (it's been a long summer!) but I would like to "reserve" the right to charge our local patrons overdue fines for specialized items and items on reserve. I believe this encourages patrons to return such items in a timely manner so that equitable access to course materials may be enjoyed by all. (August 27, 2020)

Proposal 2: The CARLI Board of Directors shall eliminate for all I-Share Members all processing fees for overdue and lost materials by January 1, 2021, and similarly encourage non-I-Share CARLI Governing Members to eliminate all processing fees for overdue and lost materials.

Comments: 

• No problem -- as long as we can still implement blocks. Blocks are the only realistic way to pressure patrons to return our overdue items. (July 21, 2020)
• Agreed - this is an important step toward equity. (July 21, 2020)
• Yes, this needs to happen. Many institutions are putting ridiculous charges (some are almost $100!) in the processing fees as a way to get around not being allowed to charge fines. If we as a consortium say that we are not allowed to impose fines, we must get rid of the processing cost as well that some libraries are using in this inappropriate manner. (July 21, 2020)
• As a library whose budget has been progressively reduced each year over the past decade, we have come to rely increasingly heavily on processing fees to offset the labor costs involved with reacquiring and reprocessing replacement items. While I agree that regulating predatory practices regarding replacement fees should be a priority for CARLI, eliminating replacement fees entirely would put an additional economic burden on financially fragile libraries. (July 21, 2020)
• While I support equity of access to resources, I also support equity of responsibility for them. Removing any sort of sense of responsibility for the return of library materials is not an equity issue. I can't think of a single patron characteristic (race/ethnicity, gender, income level, etc.) that would cause a patron to fail to be able to return library materials. While to odd circumstance does occasionally arise, those can often be worked out on a case-by-case basis.
  Most libraries try to avoid billing as much as possible, which I support. But as much as we dislike the necessity of doing this, how is it fair to the other patrons at your library to essentially let one person deny everyone else access to an item by checking it out and keeping it. (July 21, 2020)
• I support this proposal. (July 21, 2020)
• We always forgive the processing fee for all materials that have been returned, but I know other institutions do not do this. To me, eliminating the processing fee will be a more equitable solution. Even if institutions fold the processing fee into the replacement cost, at least this will mean that it is only paid if a patron doesn't return the book. (July 21, 2020)
• I also strongly support this proposal. It is very confusing to patrons that when they return "lost" items most charges are dropped, but sometimes (at some institutions) they are not. (July 23, 2020)
• We do not charge a processing fee, and would be in support of this proposed policy. (July 23, 2020)
• This too is a good idea. (July 24, 2020)
• We removed processing fees years ago, and agree that this should be I-share wide practice. (July 24, 2020)
• Yes, as long as staff currently handling these processes will not be economically impacted. (July 24, 2020)
• I have discussed this with my management team, and we all support ending fees for overdue materials as well. (July 28, 2020)
• We currently do not charge processing or billing fees, just the cost of the material. (July 29, 2020)
• Our institution does not attach processing fees for lost materials. We have a default flat replacement fee, and typically adjust it to the cost of the item once it has been determined that the patron cannot return it in a condition suitable for continued circulation by our standards. (July 29, 2020)
• I am happy to comply with this as well, but understand given ongoing budget cuts, I will be rolling my processing fees into my lost materials fees to retain some modicum of cost recovery. The only reason I charge a processing fee is to cover the labor costs of everyone who has to manage tracking down overdue items or replacing lost materials. My budget margins are razor thin. (July 30, 2020)
• Approve - If an item is lost, the processing fees can be incorporated into the lost item replacement fee. If an item is returned and replacement fees are waived, it has always been difficult to collect the Processing Fee from borrowers from other libraries. The outstanding fee would then remain in the system and make it difficult for the other library to clean-up their patron database. We expect this change to result in minimal loss to income while reducing staff time and simplifying patron database maintenance. (August 4, 2020)
• I fully support this policy change. (August 6, 2020)
• We support ending processing fees and would adopt it at our institution if approved. We would continue to assess lost book fees. (August 6, 2020)
• YES!!!! great ideas both! (August 20, 2020)
• Agreed and support. One question: is the owning library then expected to replace the lost item? (August 20, 2020)
• Strongly agree. (August 21, 2020)
• We had not been charging processing fees to local/IShare patrons in regards to "lost" material being returned. Our $5 processing fee was mostly assessed on the rare occasion when a transaction did require some extra processing (replacements or return of damaged items). (August 27, 2020)