Member-only story
No Overdue Fees!
Last October the Cambridge Public Library joined a trend among libraries nation-wide. They abolished overdue fees on materials past due.
I always knew the point of charging ten cents per day per overdue book (a dollar for a CD!) was not to generate real income for the library. It thought it was a mild incentive to be a good library user; to return items borrowed on time. Therefore, I couldn’t understand the point of eliminating them.
After the policy was in force a few months, I asked my local librarian about the fallout of eliminating overdue fines. Her response revealed a completely different logic than the one trapped within me.
“It has been a huge success. We’ve received hundreds of items that people did not bring back because their fines were so high. Books and CD’s that people had held on to for years.”
This provided one of those moments when I stand in awe at the spectrum of human behavior, while simultaneously acknowledging that I occupy a lonely niche more than two standard deviations beyond the norm. What was for me: incentive; was to others: punishment. Ten cents per day is not a lot of money for the guy who gets his books in within the basic timeframe of ‘due…
