https://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/2018/02/unsettling-a-new-chief-exec-for-the-libraries-taskforce.html What's happening to your library? Tue, 13 Feb 2018 20:23:18 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/2018/02/unsettling-a-new-chief-exec-for-the-libraries-taskforce.html#comment-26409 Mon, 12 Feb 2018 19:30:43 +0000 http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/?p=13621#comment-26409 There is no addiction to fines: that is a specious argument. No fines means books do not get returned on time, or at all. That plays havoc with your reservation system, if you have one, and users have to pay for that. A fines system recognises that people are basically not particularly caring about fellow users of the service. I speak as an ex-librarian from the public sector. If you could prove to me that people are in fact basically caring about fellow users then I would be glad to see the back of fines. In the academic sector unpaid fines can lead to a withholding of a degree: the ultimate sanction. In the public sector there is no ultimate sanction. No, I forget, they just close the libraries instead, or hand them over to the incompetent money-grubbing private sector, or charities using volunteers where professionals should be employed …so it goes.

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