N.O. public library closes book on late fees
25th March 2024 · 0 Comments
By Khalil Gillon
Contributing Writer
(Veritenews.org) — The New Orleans Public Library announced Friday (Mar. 15) that it will no longer fine patrons for late returns in an effort to make the library more accessible for low-income communities.
The library’s board approved the change last week, making permanent a temporary policy that has been in place for years.
In 2019, the library eliminated late fees for all of its youth materials, with the goal of eliminating economic hurdles that young library-goers may face. The following year, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the library discontinued fines for all overdue items and eliminated any existing late fees for library patrons.
Edward Doley, an Algiers resident, was waiting outside Tuesday morning for the Algiers Regional Library to open. He said the policy change would be beneficial for members of the community.
“I think it’s a good thing for the kids and people [who] are not able to pay their balances,” Doley said. Heather Riley, director of public services for the New Orleans Public Library, said that before the library put a pause on overdue fees in 2020, the generated revenue was minimal.
“Fines made up less than 1% of…our budget,” Riley said. “So there’s not a noticeable impact. It’s a win all around.”
However, fines will still apply for lost or damaged items. For lost items, a fee will be placed on the library patron’s account until the item is returned.
The new policy also won’t apply to fines accrued from interlibrary loans, which are a dollar a day for overdue materials. Interlibrary loans are books, DVDs and other library materials that are sourced from a library outside of the city’s library system.
The move to permanently eliminate late fees is an effort to make the library more accessible, which is one of the pillars of the library’s decade-long strategic plan created in 2021.
“Certainly not charging fines will, we believe, bring back people who maybe had fines and hadn’t been back in years,” Emily Painton, executive director of New Orleans Public Library, said. “We’ll certainly make people more comfortable…[with] using the library.”
New Orleans Public Library’s elimination of late fees is part of a nationwide trend of eliminating economic barriers to make libraries more accessible, which the American Library Association has been advocating for. In 2019, the association penned a resolution that said fines do more harm than good and suggested that libraries do away with them.
The New Orleans Public Library joins four other parishes in the New Orleans metropolitan area – Jefferson, St. Charles, St. James and St. John the Baptist parishes – that have permanently waived late fees.
Shannan Cvitanovic, director of Friends of New Orleans Public Library, a nonprofit that advocates for and supports the programming of the city’s library system, said that late fees can creep up on anyone and that she is excited about the direction the library is going.
“I’ve sat on a book for a month, and of all people I have no excuse to be late with a book, but it happens,” Cvitanovic said with a laugh. “I’m just so thrilled with the trajectory of the library right now. We want to have our arms opened up wide to welcome more people.”
This article originally published in the March 25, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
