I know it eats you up each time you pass the beautiful glass library in Surry Hills – the realisation that due to that coffee-stained copy of The Da Vinci Code you lost three share-houses ago, you can never step foot into that building again.
Well, those dark days are over, after the City of Sydney has completely done away with fines – based on studies, and their own trails, that prove they simply don’t work, and actually act as a major deterrent in people returning long-overdue books.
Suzanne Buljan, the City of Sydney’s Manager of Libraries and Learning, told news.com.au the fines were a big barrier in people with long-overdue books returning to the library.
“When you charge fines people feel they can’t come into library or they get defensive around the fine. So from having a financial implication to not bringing the book back — ‘you can’t do anything and owes us a fine’ — we’re changing people’s behaviour so they’re not being punished financially and it’s just about bringing the book back. Too much staff time was being spent on chasing fines rather than delivering services.”
The news comes after the library ran an eight-month, no-fine trail, and found that the return rate for overdue books being returned was three times higher.
“People weren’t embarrassed or afraid to come in”, Buljan adds, “and miraculously they were found that book that was down the back of the couch.”
The library does stress they will suspend idiots who actively abuse this system, so don’t. In the words of a literary great, “Unreal, banana peel!”
