University Library Fines

elisebutt65

mr_fishbulb wrote:

Count yourself lucky. I once kept 2 24 hour books for a week by mistake. Cost me 2 x £30!

Heh - heh - I once kept some 3 day'ers out too long once as well - I paid for the books as it was cheaper to do that and keep them , than pay the fine!!!

Karnam

jobbingmusician wrote:

At the LSE, when I was there, the fine was £1 per HOUR for some books!!!!!!!!!!

yes this happens at kings college as well. they're short loan books and are in super high demand so i think its fair that you can only borrow for a few hours at a time. then again ive paid £40+ on books from short loan cause i got caught in lectures and didnt return it in time. end of day it was horrific!

still i do appeciate why they are there and pay them if i have to

Sassy_Student

at Kent Uni the short loans are 50p an HOUR! imagine forgetting that for a week......

saintstreaky

Perhaps I can give a different perspective on this? I work as a library assistant in an FE College library - not quite the same, but similar principle.

Firstly, library fines are *meant* to hurt. If they don't, we might as well have none and let people keep books as long as they like.

Secondly, the admin that is involved with overdue items is probably far more significant than you think. The exact process varies from place to place, but we have to sort overdue notices, followed by an invoice if the book is a month overdue, and eventually (and not at all unusually) call in an external agency to try and recover the book(s). All of that costs time and money (and is an extremely frustrating job too!). Clearly not every overdue gets to that stage, but equally there are many items that never get recovered.

I don't know the figures, but I'd be amazed if we made much (if any) money from charges, by the time we've gone through that process and replaced lost and damaged books.

On the other side of the coin, you'll probably find that other charges (e.g. for inter-library loans if you need to get a book/paper etc from another university) are at less than cost - i.e. the library subsidises your request.

In all honesty, unless the date stamped inside the book was wrong (which does occasionally happen, we all make mistakes!) I've got very little sympathy!

xnikkix

I've had an email today to say I've incurred £2.30 of charges. Gutted!

I've checked my books and it looks like the librarian gave me a 3 week loan but the system sees it as a 7 day loan. I'll have to go kick up a fuss tomorrow. £2.30 is not a huge deal to me but it's the principal that they were wrong.

proplusplus

Hi,

thanks for the replies - i understand what a lot of you are saying.

however, you have avoided the main question!

is it like the Bank account charges - and therefore the fine is un-enforceable?

i understand it's role as a deterant - the bank charges are the same, they are due to stop people from missing payments/going over-drawn etc... but these are not enforceable at law - and this site has gone crazy over people claiming their money back - which is a great thing!

so - if you can do it with the banks - can you do it with the libraries is what i'm asking

cheers,

marcosw7

Karnam

no they're fair so you can't claim them back. they're fair as a few quid is fair enough in order to contribute towards the cost of more books so that all students can benefit, not just those who take them out for the whole term.

Karnam

anyways, the point of claiming your bank charges back is that the banks are PROFITTERING from the charges, wheras libaries can barely afford to run.

i'd love to stick it to the (bank) man but i dont feel the same way about university libaries that get hardly any funding and little credit from students

juno

I think that librarians shouldn't be so evil about overdue books, as you'e giving them much needed funds to help the library!

proplusplus

as i said previously, i dont mind the 30p 50p occasional fine,

but £10 is excessive in my view - and this is them trying to MAKE money off me, rather than deter me.

this is the only reason i am asking. i want to know if the £10 in charges is acceptable, or is it un-enforceable - anyone answer that question?

marcosw7