I had my parenting questioned by the librarian (funny)

[fralala]

I just hope that libraran doesn't have grandkids.  :rolleyes:

[dirty ethel rackham]

We once had a librarian scold one of my kids for a large fine.  I asked her how a 7 year old was supposed to get to the library (over a mile away in suburbia) to take her books back.  She saw my point.  I can see requiring a kid to pay back a fine if it is their fault ... like they forget a book when you are making a trip to the library or they lose one.   Sometimes we would find one many months after we paid for a lost book, only to find it on our shelf tucked inside another book ... probably happened when someone hastily shoved a book on a shelf.  Or under a bed.  We have had many large donations to the library.  

 

While it's nice when libraries can be flexible to accommodate patrons, a more foundational principle is that library users have the right to privacy and confidentiality. For example, a husband does NOT have the right to know what books his wife has checked out. At our library, patrons can have a note added to their account saying, for example, "Husband John can pick up holds for Judith" or "Mom Helen is authorized on this account" but the default is no access.

 

With young children, the situation is a little different. But with adults and teenagers, we do try to be consistent. Even though it annoys patrons, we consider it an important protection of their privacy rights. Once we explain the reasoning, they are usually understanding.

I'm  pretty sure that our library secures the privacy of teens and adults as far as what they check out.  We had one librarian who wouldn't let dh pay my fine.  But he had my card in his hand so that he could pick up my hold, which couldn't be checked out since I was over my fine limit.  They had to write up a special receipt for him to pay so that he wouldn't see my check-out history.  That said, if you have a family member's card in your hand, you can use it to check books out all the time. I encouraged everyone to check things out on my card because that way we would only have to check one account.   ETA:  We don't even have to have a card with us if we know the number.  I have mine memorized as does most of my family.  

 

They don’t offer a read away the fines option here, or really any reduction, amnesty, or grace. You pay your fines or they put out a warrant for your arrest. I don’t know what the threshold is for that as I think the most we’ve owed is $2 and I pay promptly. I would hope it was a significant amount of money and I’ve bern chided by other posters in the past for saying so, but I think it’s wrong.

They used to charge ten cents a day, but they joined another library system and raised fines a quarter. I have a twenty-five cent fine on my account right now so my account status is listed as “delinquent,†but I can still check out books. They do let me use and manage all of the cards for our family so I guess that’s something.

 

An arrest warrant?  Are you freakin' kidding me?  For library fines?  Wow.  I can't imagine that this is a good use of public services.  I can just see Barney Fife coming to arrest me for library fines.   

Edited March 19, 2018 by dirty ethel rackham

[mom2scouts]

I neglected to get to the library for several weeks and we had a pile of books checked out on my dd's library card. DD wasn't able to use her card, so I went to the desk to pay the fine. While paying, a stranger stood there and lectured DD about how she needed to thank me for paying her fine and how she needed to do lots of work at home to pay it off. I was a bit annoyed since the books weren't returned because *I* neglected to take her back to the library. It was my fault, so I paid the fine. It's not like my 10 year old could drive herself to the downtown library to return her own books!

 

I wish our library had some way to reduce the fines by reading or donating, but we always have to pay the fine in cash.

[mellifera33]

 

Email reminders and online renewal are the best! I haven't had an overdue book in probably 3 years.

I must be impervious to library technology. Our library has both of these, and I somehow still manage to accrue fines. :D

[marbel]

The libraries I use have gone to self-checkout machines. So I could use any card I happen to have on me. Of course, now that is only my own...everyone else carries their own card. How would a machine know who is checking things out?

 

Email reminders and online renewal are the best! I haven't had an overdue book in probably 3 years.

 

Though I'm not doing as well as you, it's pretty rare for me to have fines.  I get annoyed (at myself) when I have to pay a dollar fine for a movie we didn't even watch. But that is completely my fault, no one else's.   I check the library database pretty much every day to see what to renew and what has to go back.  I still forget to walk out the door with stuff occasionally, but not very often. 

 

Also, our library is close (though not walking distance, sigh) and on the way to a lot of other places we go, so it's easy to blow in and do a quick drop-off.

[shawthorne44]

One thing I started to do recently that has helped with library fines.  

Once I started owning a lot of ex-library books, scooping up library books became harder because I couldn't just grab everything that Looked like a library book.  I got some of that colorful Washi tape, and all library books as they enter the house get 3" strips of washi tape on the bottom outside of the book.  I think I might start using electric tape (black) to cover the call numbers of the library books I own.  

 

We had a similar experience, only opposite.  When DD was about 4 she deliberately damaged a library book by holding onto the pages and bending the spine the opposite direction.   I made her gather up All her money and put it in a bag and give it to the librarian.  They thought she was so stinking cute they didn't want to take the money and we had to insist.  It was a memorable experience for DD.  I just wish the book she'd damaged had been a better book than Walter The Farting Dog since we'd had to buy it.  

[Zinnia]

We don't have the read away program here, either, but that would be amazing!

[dirty ethel rackham]

The libraries I use have gone to self-checkout machines. So I could use any card I happen to have on me. Of course, now that is only my own...everyone else carries their own card. How would a machine know who is checking things out?

 

Email reminders and online renewal are the best! I haven't had an overdue book in probably 3 years.

Well, I haven't had an overdue book in 3 years, but I haven't been taking out many books in that time frame ... 2 high school graduates and one in public school, LOL.  But, even though we have had this, I still managed to have fines.  I am so happy that they allow online payment now so that I can renew books when I need to.  

[Terabith]

My husband and kids all have their own library cards, but I try to have everyone check out everything on my card, because I have it signed up to give me automatic reminders, and my computer remembers my library card number, so I can auto renew.  We're notorious for not returning stuff if it's on other people's cards.

[Momto6inIN]

Were you at my library lol?

 

I think they must take a "draconian rules and severity" class as well as a "looking down their nose at you" class before you are able to be a librarian.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327AZ using Tapatalk

Eta: I just realized how snotty that sounds ... I should have said *my* librarian must have taken those classes ;)

Edited March 19, 2018 by Momto5inIN

[JoJosMom]

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: Thank you for sharing, OP!

 

(And I love my library even more today after reading some of these stories....Wow!)

[momacacia]

I would've been plastered on the ceiling at the librarian. The audacity!!

 

My firstborn, the other library cardholder in our home, would have been plastered on the ceiling at me if I'd run fines up on her library card. 😂 "Mom! My library record!!" 😂 I know, I know, Mama such a rebel!😛

Edited March 19, 2018 by momacacia

[shawthorne44]

Were you at my library lol?

 

I think they must take a "draconian rules and severity" class as well as a "looking down their nose at you" class before you are able to be a librarian.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327AZ using Tapatalk

 

I actually have a test to see which librarians are the good ones.  I usually do it the first or second time in any library.   I discovered the test on accident.  

 

Gather a bunch of books, and I mean a bunch.  Stack the books so that you can carry this large quantity of books all at once.  Imagine a coffee table book on the bottom and some big books, then a double stack of smaller books tall enough that the top of the stacks is tucked under your chin.  Now walk around the library.   Watch the librarians in your peripheral vision.   Any that see you will either big smile or big frown.   Guaranteed.  Try to only talk to the smilers.   

[Alicia64]

It's a funny story, but picking .75 out of your hand and then telling you what would happen next?

 

Not cool.

 

When I've had somebody treat me similarly it was made clear to me that that particular person had Aspergers. (I know not every Aspie does this sort of thing.)

 

Awesome that you took the high road and laughed.

 

Alley

[Tanaqui]

asked for a recommendation once, and was informed in no uncertain terms that if *I* needed a specific book, I should put my kids in ps!

 

Say what!?

 

[scrapbookbuzz]

Yeah, our library doesn't care at all. 

 

I was once at the check out with an assortment of books when I hit my 100 book limit.  First the librarian suggested checking out the rest on my husband's card which I always carry.  His account had been deactivated though from lack of use.  The librarian said she couldn't reactivate it without my husband coming in, but she then suggested just creating an account in one of the kid's names to double our limit.  I had to co-sign on the card, so it is only nominally "theirs".  It is just another family card, and the library is totally fine with that.

 

Wendy

 

You check out ONE HUNDRED books at a time??  :ohmy: Wow! 

[Tanaqui]

It was not HER job to help me educate my two girls. THAT is what the ps is for!

 

WHAT.

 

[wendyroo]

You check out ONE HUNDRED books at a time??  :ohmy: Wow! 

 

Not all at once - that's the hard part. 

 

We go and return 15 books and check out 30 books.  Later that week we are at a different library, and return 5 books that will be due soon and check out 45 books because we haven't been to that branch in a while and the kids find a bunch of new and interesting things.  The next week we make a quick stop to pick up 10 hold books, but we don't have any with us to return.  And so on.  It constantly amazes me that we are able to get most of the books back on time; the last fine I had to pay was $0.35 two years ago.

 

We have an AMAZING library system with 20 branches.  We frequently visit the 10 of those branches that are within 25 minutes of us.  Plus we have lending privileges at a large city library system nearby and a fantastic, free interlibrary loan network that allows us to get books from thousands of other libraries.

 

Normally we have 85-100 books checked out, but now that I have more kids reading more books, I have been hitting the check out limit frequently.  It is frustrating having to scavenge books to return that the kids may not actually be done with yet just so I can check out some books I have on hold. The second card we now have will eliminate the juggling act.

 

Wendy

[milovany]

Our library is strict! It is .25/per day with no grace period and if anyone in the family has even a .25 fine no one can check out a book. It works though. We get our books back.

 

Try calling them out on social media.  Worked for me!  We give them our e-mail address when we sign up for a card and then the library will send out notices related to the account.  The problem was, they would send out a "coming due" notice two or three days ahead of time, but then didn't send out overdue notices until about 10 days after the fact.  By then, with a 50 book limit at .20 per day, I could owe $100.  I'm usually really good at keeping up, but as you know, sometimes life happens.  I figured if they can program their e-mail system to send notices at two or three days before, and 10 days after, they could certainly add a day-after-due notice in the mix. I had mentioned this to the desk people before (small town, they know me) without any change, but then I kindly mentioned this change in our newspaper's comment section (at the end of an article about the library), and within days I got a call that they were changing the policy and would now send out notices the day after books haven't been returned. 

 

Yeah, our library doesn't care at all.

 

Ours, either.  *Shrug* They know I use one card for all kids and they even gave me a second card for one random kid so I could check out more.  If I had to use a different card for each kid, I'd quit going to the library.  I don't want to manage that many different online accounts to see what's due when. 

[Ausmumof3]

While it's nice when libraries can be flexible to accommodate patrons, a more foundational principle is that library users have the right to privacy and confidentiality. For example, a husband does NOT have the right to know what books his wife has checked out. At our library, patrons can have a note added to their account saying, for example, "Husband John can pick up holds for Judith" or "Mom Helen is authorized on this account" but the default is no access.

 

With young children, the situation is a little different. But with adults and teenagers, we do try to be consistent. Even though it annoys patrons, we consider it an important protection of their privacy rights. Once we explain the reasoning, they are usually understanding.

At our library parents have to go guarantor for kids fines so I guess it's a bit different. You have to have access to the account to check and pay fines. Plus I look after all the library cards because otherwise my kids would lose theirs.

 

I don't feel bad about occasionally putting stuff on hold on my kids cards because we have a limit of 30 holds and I generally fill that up with books for school very quickly.

[Ausmumof3]

I think we linked dh's and my card on our applications, so we're authorized users on each other's accounts. It was opt in, not opt out, so I think that's a useful policy for a library to have. Kids' (under 18) cards must have a legal adult sign as financially responsible so they're linked automatically. If you're on the hook to pay for the books, you have to have some way to check what's out. We do have a new system that lets you opt in to maintain your check out history. It's a bit like goodreads.com but just for the library. I like that idea too, but it must be opt in in order to protect privacy rights.

 

I have to respect our library's commitment to privacy. They put all their items in manila envelopes on the reserve shelf so that they're not visible and law enforcement can't make the argument that they're visible to the public. That's a lot of effort to preserve our right to not have our library records be public.

 

That is a huge effort. I must admit I have refrained from reserving a couple of books that I would be embarrassed to be seen to be reading ... that's kind of sad isn't it...!

[Ausmumof3]

They can’t. At our library, kids can get their own cards and accrue fines. They can’t checkout with fines over $10. Juvenile accounts never go to collections, and parents are not responsible for the fines either.

How does this work if they lose or damage stuff though? Our library has some pretty expensive books on - I always get a bit nervous when the kids borrow them because I know replacement cost will be painful if they get damaged.

[Ausmumof3]

Not all at once - that's the hard part.

 

We go and return 15 books and check out 30 books. Later that week we are at a different library, and return 5 books that will be due soon and check out 45 books because we haven't been to that branch in a while and the kids find a bunch of new and interesting things. The next week we make a quick stop to pick up 10 hold books, but we don't have any with us to return. And so on. It constantly amazes me that we are able to get most of the books back on time; the last fine I had to pay was $0.35 two years ago.

 

We have an AMAZING library system with 20 branches. We frequently visit the 10 of those branches that are within 25 minutes of us. Plus we have lending privileges at a large city library system nearby and a fantastic, free interlibrary loan network that allows us to get books from thousands of other libraries.

 

Normally we have 85-100 books checked out, but now that I have more kids reading more books, I have been hitting the check out limit frequently. It is frustrating having to scavenge books to return that the kids may not actually be done with yet just so I can check out some books I have on hold. The second card we now have will eliminate the juggling act.

 

Wendy

We frequently have that kind of quantity. It adds up pretty quick if you borrow those short history/science type books.

[Ausmumof3]

Just remembered something that happened here last week.

 

I had borrowed a somewhat obscure book for school. Anyway it came due and it went to renew it and it had holds. I though that was a bit odd as it didn't seem like a particularly popular type of book.

 

Anyway we returned it. Next week I went in and went to pick up our holds and there it was in ds holds on the shelf. Apparently I accidentally reserved it twice without realising. The librarians must have thought we were nuts!

[cjzimmer1]

 

Anyway we returned it. Next week I went in and went to pick up our holds and there it was in ds holds on the shelf. Apparently I accidentally reserved it twice without realising. The librarians must have thought we were nuts!

 

DH and I enjoy a popular author who regularly books out new books and waiting lists get long.  So as soon as I see that a new book is listed in the library system.  I request a hold under my library card and another under DH's card (we don't do well sharing a book so we really do want two copies).  Since they are requested at virtually the same time, often we will each get our hold notice available at the same time.  Our library lets us check out each others books (once we gave the library signed permission), so one of us goes in and the staff sees we have two copies of the same book waiting for us.  They always ask us if we want both and when we say yes, they just say ok and check out both copies to whoever is picking them up.  They don't seem the least bit bothered by it.

 

I will also request 2 copies (under different cards) when it's a book I want to be able to discuss with a kid.  Just so much easier when we each have our copy to page through.

[Terabith]

You check out ONE HUNDRED books at a time??  :ohmy: Wow! 

 

When my kids were in the picture book stage, and we were homeschooling, we routinely had over 100 at a time.  Picture books are like potato chips.  

[HSmomof2]

How does this work if they lose or damage stuff though? Our library has some pretty expensive books on - I always get a bit nervous when the kids borrow them because I know replacement cost will be painful if they get damaged.

The fines just sit there until they’re paid. Our library usually doesn’t charge for damaged items but does for lost. I see a lot of juvenile accts with over $100 in fines. Nothing happens to those. The kid can’t check out, but it doesn’t go to collections.

[Kidlit]

I almost refuse to get my kids cards because I don’t want books checked out on multiple cards. We are heavy library users and it helps me so much to have all our books on one account.

[vonfirmath]

At our library parents have to go guarantor for kids fines so I guess it's a bit different. You have to have access to the account to check and pay fines. Plus I look after all the library cards because otherwise my kids would lose theirs.

 

I don't feel bad about occasionally putting stuff on hold on my kids cards because we have a limit of 30 holds and I generally fill that up with books for school very quickly.

 

Wow. 30 holds.

 

We have a limit of 5.

It used to be 10 :( And I still miss it

[katilac]

Just FYI: The cards for our county library are very adamantly "not transferable," meaning you are not allowed to use another person's card for any reason. This info is in the paperwork one signs to get a card in the first place, and the library takes that very seriously.

 

 

But do you have self check-out? The only time I'm ever at the desk dealing with staff is when I'm paying a fine. Which is often, but I usually do that first and still check myself out. 

 

 

While it's nice when libraries can be flexible to accommodate patrons, a more foundational principle is that library users have the right to privacy and confidentiality.  

 

 

Does that mean they don't jovially (and loudly) call out titles and comment on them as they check you out? Because a couple of staff had a terrible habit of doing that before we had self check-out. It was really hard on people who liked to read about atheism and sex. 

 

Covering books on hold is also a very smart idea. I am guilty of trying to discreetly glance and see what other people have on hold! 

[scoutingmom]

Here, the parent is responsible for the fines and has to sign up for the library card. How do they enforce a contract with a minor?

That is supposed to be the case here too... but the librarians wouldn't remove the charges from my step-daughters' cards caused by their mom. Not when we went with them to ask as teens, not when they were adults....

[scoutingmom]

They can’t. At our library, kids can get their own cards and accrue fines. They can’t checkout with fines over $10. Juvenile accounts never go to collections, and parents are not responsible for the fines either.

Yes... at ours they are supposed to be able to go after the parents, but in reality they just made it so the kid couldn't use the card even once they became an adult. Oh, and the grandkids couldn't get cards either as Mom (single) had the disabled card.

[LuvToRead]

Wow. 30 holds.

 

We have a limit of 5.

It used to be 10 :( And I still miss it

 

We have a limit of 10. and that is bad enough!  I have to juggle cards, drive into town just to check out the books I have on hold, so I can put more on hold.  Our library is tiny and probably 99% of books are through ILL.  

 

I don't even want to think about a world where 5 holds is the limit!

[LuvToRead]

I almost refuse to get my kids cards because I don’t want books checked out on multiple cards. We are heavy library users and it helps me so much to have all our books on one account.

 

I would love to be able to use one card.  I am limited to 30 check outs and 10 holds per card.  

Edited March 20, 2018 by LuvToRead

[vonfirmath]

But do you have self check-out? The only time I'm ever at the desk dealing with staff is when I'm paying a fine. Which is often, but I usually do that first and still check myself out. 

 

 

 

Does that mean they don't jovially (and loudly) call out titles and comment on them as they check you out? Because a couple of staff had a terrible habit of doing that before we had self check-out. It was really hard on people who liked to read about atheism and sex. 

 

Covering books on hold is also a very smart idea. I am guilty of trying to discreetly glance and see what other people have on hold! 

 

Here they only put three letters of the last name on the book (plus the library card # for those who have similar last names). So you can see the books but have no idea who is checking them out