if we subtract all the parts of socialism that people like, no wonder they don’t like “socialism”
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i could also cause quite a pile up on the interstate by playing bumper cars. a few fistfights by cursing and shoving random passerbys. i could open every box of cookies at the grocery store and crush the sugary goodness beneath my heel
i mean i could. but why?
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What’s with the snark about eliminating fines being a net financial loss? Unless you run libraries on fresh air and buttons they’ve still gotta make the books balance.
so yes, lost fees that would otherwise have been paid.
What happens if everybody returns their books on time for a prolonged period? Does the library go bankrupt?
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Late fees aren’t a great earner (if you want to earn money sell services) but they are a great opportunity cost. They drive people away from using the library and doing the very thing you are there for.
I don’t even consider it controversial in the library game any more.
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There are a lot of goals, revenue sources, and expenses for libraries. Late fees are frequently not required to make the books balance. To put it in a more traditional corporate context consider loss prevention measures in retail. At a certain point the measures required to reduce theft further negatively impact other processes. Much like a store could reduce theft through cavity searches, but it would undermine sales and productivity, many library systems are finding that punitive fees undermine other goals. The snark comes from the fact that a lot of apparently well meaning people are getting caught on one line item and missing the broader systems discussion. I’m reasonably sure that the heads of several of the largest library systems in the country have taken the time to do basic arithmetic and decided that the losses are manageable.
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Can homeless patrons just buy things for themselves?
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As I tend to say on response to that: I don’t know the price of everything but I do know the value of nothing, it’s worth nothing and if you paid any more you were ripped off. The service we don’t provide to patrons who don’t turn up because we drive them away with late fees that they don’t pay (even if they are small) is worth nothing.
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That’s why we have taxes, to pay for public services like public parks and libraries. How about we stop pretending like a society can run without taxes and that the only way to fund society is through private corporations who don’t give a shit about the public good?
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One person mentioned that it was a net financial loss (which it is), and several people jumped on it. You yourself admit that late fees are sometimes needed to balance the books (“Late fees are frequently not required” implies that sometimes they are). No-one said libraries don’t have wider social goals. No-one implied that libraries should be money making. No-one acknowledged that libraries do still have to work within a budget.
Agreed. None of which invalidates what @jimp said, or explains why budgets don’t apply to public institutions.
Budgets don’t apply to public institutions? Maybe they shouldn’t have budgetary limits, but every municipality I know of has a limited amount of funding, and it gets apportioned as best it can. 10,000 may not seem like a lot of money, but it’s a half-time position for a shelver or circulation desk worker or it’s a bunch of new materials.
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If they don’t exist they aren’t part of your budgeting. They’re not part of mine/ours, and we don’t miss them.
They have a small financial effect and an outsized opportunity cost.
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Great news for you, but like @BakerB said, these aren’t small sums to find. What’s the opportunity cost of losing staff and the knock on reduced opening hours? I’m just saying people should be a bit less sniffy about valid points about money, regardless of how good an idea it is.
If libraries are relying on fines to balance the books then maybe someone should re-examine the budget. Either they are spending too much unnecessarily or they need a bigger budget, and having experienced the last decade I’d say in most cases it is the second. Requiring people to break the rules just to break even is not a sensible method of funding.
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Yeah, only the police seem to be able to get away with that nonsense.
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Tell that to the budget committee 
What is the purpose of a public library? If you think charging $800,000/year in fines is part of it, then you probably deserve to be snarked at.
The article was about the success of a program that eliminated late fees and budgeted for the change. The program generated a significant improvement in serving the community. Parsing it in investment banker speech is misguided at best. Especially in the context of a city that spends $1.75B on policing, and is $35M over budget YTD just on police overtime.
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I’m super happy that they could achieve this within their budget. I’m sad that lots of public library’s can’t achieve their purpose without fines income in their current circumstances and budget. It’s super weird that commenters think providing a service within a budget is “investment banker speech”.
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