library cops overdue books
Library cops overdue books - Library calls cops for overdue books, A Massachusetts library sent police to a 5-year-old girl’s home to get back her overdue books. The books had apparently been overdue for several months, but the library claims it was a $100 audio book that the girl’s father checked out that warranted the police visit.
In Charlton, MA, Sgt. Dan Dowd recently stopped by the home of Shannon Benoit to let her know that her 5-year-old daughter Hailey had two books several months overdue which needed to be returned or paid for (video below).
“I thought it was way overboard,” says Benoit. “I closed my door, I looked at my daughter and she started crying.”
Hailey asked her mom if the police were going to arrest her. Hailey says, “I was scared.”
They found and returned the books, but Hailey’s mom argues that sending a cop to their house was like pounding a ten penny nail with a sledge hammer.
“Nobody wanted to, on this end to get involved in it,” says Sgt. Dowd. “But the library contacted us, and the chief delegated, and apparently I was one of the low men on the totem pole.”
Oddly, the state law does allow for a misdemeanor to be charged on overdue library books, so it could have been worse.
Via Facebook, the library filled in some pertinent details (i.e., what actually happened) after getting some nasty Facebook comments:
“Library materials are purchased using taxpayer dollars. We feel as library staff that it is our duty to safeguard those tax dollars. We have asked the Charlton Police Dept. to help recover items from those patrons who have been delinquent in returning materials for more than 6 months and who have at least $100 worth of unreturned materials at their homes. We follow our standard procedure of phonecalls and/or emails to remind patrons to return their materials. A bill is sent out once an item is overdue for a month. Sending out the police is a last resort effort to get back some of our most valuable items. The police visited 13 families whose outstanding balance totaled $2634.00 in library materials.” (from Charlton Public Library’s Facebook Page - also just added to the main page of the library’s website).
After I read the article, I first visited the library’s website and tried to find their fines and fees policy. Here’s all I found (until they updated the site and their Facebook Page):
Print and audio materials accrue a 10 cent daily overdue fine with a $3.00 maximum fine per item.
Dvd and video items accrue a $1.00 daily overdue fine with a maximum fine of $5.00 per item.
Patrons are responsible for the repair or replacement of lost or damaged items. Failure to pay fines or damages will result in the loss of borrowing privileges at C/WMARS libraries.
from their Library Services page
What’s missing here? Any information about the process, what happens if you don’t pay your late fees, etc – other than the “loss of borrowing privileges” info. That sounds VERY different than explanation from the library quoted above, doesn’t it?
