Lower Mainland librarians, including those in New Westminster, are keeping an eye on Whistler.
No, it’s not to figure out when they’ll be able to hit the ski slopes this winter. It’s to watch what happens as the result of the Whistler Public Library dumping late fees and fines to make residents more comfortable borrowing books and other materials. It’s a slippery slope, however, the New Westminster Public Library (NWPL) isn’t likely to slide down. At least not yet.
“It’s something that’s not on our radar,” said chief librarian Julie Spurrell. “In a perfect world we would love not to have fines because we don’t want any barriers to people using the library. But, it’s not a perfect world and the more people don’t return materials or return them really late, the more materials we have to buy.”
Spiral said late fees and fines provide motivation for borrowers to return items. And there’s lots of ways for borrowers to avoid having to pay up. Along with the old renewal option, the library has a system that reminds cardholders by email or phone when borrowed materials are due.
“We provide so many ways not to be charged fines that people that do have to pay fines, we worry if we didn’t charge the fine they might not (ever) return the items,” said Spurrell. “Whistler is an excellent library, it’s a beautiful library. They provide excellent service. It’s quite a different community, though. It’s isolated and more of their users live in Whistler.”
Spiral said late fees and fines brought in $65,000 in revenue to the library in 2016.
“It’s part of what balances our budget. So any discussion about taking fines out would not only have to go through the library board, but also through (city council),” said Spurrell.
She knows the staff at the Whistler library and was aware they were contemplating the move. She and her staff, who are heavily occupied these days preparing for a major renovation, will monitor the ski resort results.
“It sounds very well considered and researched by the staff and (library) board at Whistler. Right now, it’s the right choice for them. We’ll be very interested to see how they find it, and whether it has done what they hope for, and whether it improves service,” said Spurrell. “When libraries do new and interesting things we’re all glad they’ve tried them and look forward to seeing if it is something we should pursue ourselves.”
But the benefits of breaking down barriers by eliminating late fees have to be weighed against the cost of lost revenue and replacing materials, she said.
“We’re always very cautious about making significant changes that appear to be very good on the surface, but we only like to do them when we’ve fully researched them and been able to test them, and look at what other libraries are doing because we don’t want to create a negative result from what we hoped would be a positive reaction,” said Spurrell.
Like many other libraries, there’s been a slight decrease in NWPL usage the last few years, although electronic use has increased and in-person visits are stable, she said.
