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Discussion: Late fines for videos and DVD'sReported This is a featured thread

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fatimadomingo
Late fines for videos and DVD's
Oct 9 2010, 5:43 PM EDT | Post edited: Oct 9 2010, 5:43 PM EDT
Would it be possible to ask the City Council to lower the fee's now that we are able to collect all fee's on customer who wish to use library services, and we are working toward a credit/debit collection service for all branches in order to collect those fees?

I had suggested that the library offer a few computers at each branch that would be for those who wish to spend more than an hour using the internet. That would work for people who are searching for jobs and submitting resumes and do not have the time or energy to drive to a different library for an extra hour or 2 of internet time, who have to take an exam that is over an hour in length in time, or people who just type really slow. But if there were computers available with an option of paying for extra time, I'm sure people who really needed to use it longer would pay. Do you find this valuable?    
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civillibrarian
1. RE: Late fines for videos and DVD's
Oct 10 2010, 11:14 AM EDT | Post edited: Oct 10 2010, 11:15 AM EDT
Hi Fatima,

I am completely in favor of reducing the $2 fine for overdue videos. Normal practice is to bring the organizations "fine and fee schedule" to Council once a year. I think it would be best to maintain that practice here but, come June, the recommendation for reducing video fines will be on our new schedule.

There a lots of interesting ways in which libraries have come to manage access to public Internet PCs. What we currently do at SSJCPL is likely the most common approach but I've others that worked very well, too. My personal favorite (though I don't even know if our current PC reservation software could do it) worked like this: There is no established time-limit on the public pc's. If there is nobody waiting to use a PC (i.e. nobody who has placed a reservation) or if there are PCs not currently in use, then the people on the PCs could, theoretically, use them for as long as they'd like. However, as soon as all PCs are in use, when somebody makes a reservation, the person who has been on the longest automatically has there session ended (with a few minutes of notification, of course). This approach works very well for maximizing the use of the PCs and actually reduces the wait time for PCs. Do you find this valuable?