Good news for some of you, I’m sure.
Houston Public Library patrons no longer will have to pay overdue fees and will have a month-long amnesty period to get past fines canceled.
City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved the library’s proposal to eliminate overdue fees — currently 20 cents per day for adult and young adult books and 10 cents per day for children’s materials — for all patrons at its more than 40 locations. The goal is to encourage more residents, especially younger and low-income Houstonians, to utilize the system, Mayor Sylvester Turner said.
“A fine-free library system evens the playing field and incentivizes Houstonians to become lifelong users of our Houston Public Library,” Turner said in a statement. “When you analyze the numbers, you see that young people account for more than 27 percent of users with fines, preventing them from accessing free resources and tools for learning. Simply put, this is the right thing to do.”
The library has issued 1.4 million library cards to consumers, according to a 2020 library foundation report. The branches have 3.6 million materials, which includes laptop computers and tablets.
Research on public libraries consistently shows late fines do not make people return books on time and actually can deter those who owe fines from using the facility again, according to Houston Public Library spokesperson Julie Mintzer.
The change will cost the library system approximately $60,000 per year in revenue generated by late fines, Minztzer said. The library has a $44 million annual budget. Going forward, book borrowers still will be responsible for the cost of damaged or lost books.
At the request of CM Amy Peck, Council will get briefed on the effect of the change at the end of the year so they can consider revisions to the ordinance if needed. All this seems reasonable to me. Fines for overdue books topped out at $10, so their cost was unlikely to be a deterrent to anyone. Be all that as it may, I just wanted the excuse to embed one of my favorite Bloom County strips:
You’re welcome.