
Chicago book returns surge 240% after city eliminates fines - happy-go-lucky
https://abc7chicago.com/society/book-returns-surge-24025-after-city-eliminates-fines/5668725/
======
reaperducer
I think what's being missed in the discussion on HN is the reason CPL
eliminated fines. It's not about the money, nor is it about getting the books
back. It's to improve access to the library system.

CPL did a study of who held the cards with suspended privileges because of
late fees, and found out that the vast majority were people in poor
neighborhoods, and of those the vast majority were children.

Now with the new rules it opens up book borrowing again to tens of thousands
of people who need it most.

/CPL cardholder.

~~~
vkizl
Being poor prevents you from returning books in time.

~~~
tux1968
Being young means you're less likely to be totally responsible yet. Being poor
means you're less likely to have parents that are 100% engaged in your library
visits.

~~~
smileysteve
Small fines seem like a great way to instill a sense of responsibility (while
also acting as insurance style payments), especially if your parents already
aren't engaged and ensuring you're responsible to duties.

As this the Good Will Hunting quote suggests, in many libraries these fees
were small, $1.25 in late fees for a Harvard Education...

~~~
moate
Sure, they seem like that. But the study Chicago conducted showed that fines
increased patron anxiety and were antithetical to the intended goals of
library leadership in engaging their patrons.

So it actually may have actually been detrimental.

------
woadwarrior01
The public libraries in Ireland decided to eliminate fines early this year and
it seems to have had the opposite effect. In some cases, people don’t seem to
return books at all. I’d placed a hold on a book, a couple of months ago and
it looks like the people who’d borrowed the only two copies of the book in the
system haven’t returned it in over 8 months now.

I‘d initially thought that eliminating fines was a great idea, but since then
I’ve changed my opinions on it.

Perhaps a better way to go about it would be to have a month (or 3 months)
long jubilee when people could return the books they haven’t returned in years
without any penalties and then switch over to a more reasonable and less
punitive fine structure. Having zero fines implies that there will always be
people who exploit the system. Lower but non-zero fines will be closer to the
optima, IMO.

~~~
padraic7a
I don't think you're correct here. In my own (anecdotal) exerience it seems to
me that returns are up. In fairness books got lost or borrowers failed to
return them before the change to abolish fines as well.

Did you speak to a member of staff and ask for a replacement book to be
purchased?

~~~
woadwarrior01
I did speak to one of the librarians at my local library and I'll be writing
them a letter detailing my suggestions, soon. Based on the comments here, I
suspect a decent middle ground of a solution would be to not lend books to
people who have books overdue. That'd probably fly better than re-introducing
fines.

The public library system here Ireland is by far the best I've seen, and it's
a bit discouraging to see people exploit a public good.

------
ComputerGuru
I honestly think it is the novelty of suddenly not having fines rather than
the actual not having of fines. IMHO (most) people don’t not return books when
they’re a day or a week late because of fines.

Ultimately, I believe it’s too early to draw any conclusions beyond observing
the number of books returned _for now_. It will certainly be interesting to
see where the steady state will wind up, though.

(I’m a CPL member.)

~~~
donw
Agreed that more data is required to draw any sort of conclusion from this.

That said, my understanding of behavioral therapy is that you reward desired
behaviors and ignore unwanted behaviors. Punishment is also on the table for
flagrant violation of the rules, but it needs to be applied equally and
immediately.

With that in mind, how does the library system reward good actors -- those
that return books on-time, that sort of thing? It's really hard to shape
behavior when you have a surplus of sticks and a notable lack of carrots.

~~~
geofft
I wonder if you can redefine the problem to not have a "good actor"
distinction. For instance, instead of the normal term-based borrowing, say
that every taxpayer gets, say, 10 books at a time, funded by the state (to
promote education/culture/whatever). You can swap out those books as often as
you want. You can also hold onto those books as long as you want. If they come
back damaged or you lose them, they continue to count against your quota
(possibly subject to a jubilee mechanism). At no point do you owe anyone
anything. Also, the library is under no obligation to buy unbounded copies of
any single book: they can have a hold system for popular new releases just
like we do now. Only books the library can reasonably acquire more copies of
(i.e., in print or public domain) are in this system; rare books maybe follow
the current system or maybe aren't loanable.

People who are heavy library users aren't affected by this, they can do what
they've been doing. People who want to hold onto a book for years can do that
too (and the library might decide to buy more copies), but they're no longer
exhibiting bad behavior and there's no reason to disincentivize them.

~~~
em-bee
it doesn't have to be funded by the state. you can just "buy" a book off the
library. in fact, you could buy the book in a book shop, and the library
becomes a swapping center.

as long as you bring back books in good condition, and they are in the library
catalogue. (the library may not want to take multiple copies of books that are
unpopular)

of course paying for books up front does affect low income families and users
who need many books at once.

another side effect of these models is that you can swap books with your
friends.

you get 10 books, and i get a different 10 books and we swap with each other
until we are through all 20 books together, and then each of us brings any 10
books back.

~~~
Moru
Public bookshelf is something that starts to pop up here and there. They are
sometimes outdoors, accessible at any time or at the entrance of supermarkets.
You take a book that looks interesting, read it and return later. Or just swap
with some other book you own. Sometimes there are someone that takes care of
the shelf, swapping content from other shelves further away. I often find
interesting stuff in our local ones.

~~~
em-bee
now that you mention it, my brother is actually managing one or more of those.
that means, from time to time he checks if anything not suitable for minors
sneaks in there, or throws out stuff that is badly damaged and not worth
keeping.

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cryptozeus
Some of the comments here are surprising. Imo people who come to library to
read books want to be a good member of the library. By assuming they will stop
returning books due to no fees is just assuming worst of them. I was surprised
when my county in California decided to get rid of all the fees. I had 5 books
due and all my fees were forgiven. I donated way more to the library just
because of this change. I was worried that how will they now afford to run the
library effectively without fees. I guess people who can afford to give
donations should do that and take the financial load out of the people who
cannot afford. There is something freeing about this. Education and knowledge
should really be free for all.

~~~
konschubert
I agree that most want to be a good member of the library, but what do you do
about a few bad actors?

(I haven't read the policy but I guess there must still be some restrictions
to prevent abuse.)

~~~
naniwaduni
You buy replacements. It's not fundamentally different from books getting
generally worn out. Lending limits on categories of items effectively upper
bound the cost of each individual bad actor to not _prohibitively_ expensive.

~~~
jakeogh
Also I bet they deny check out until late's are retured, maybe with some
buffer for lost or cant return it yet but will. I dont see it mentioned in the
article.

Smart move imho. Bravo CPL.

I bet the same result happens elsewhere independent of assumptions about
desire to pay.

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pithymaxim
For those interested in the actual policy:

> [C]hecked-out books automatically will renew as many as 15 times, as long as
> no one else places a hold on them...Items will be marked as "lost" and
> accounts will be charged a replacement fee one week after the last due date,
> but the charge will be cleared if the item is returned

[https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-
libr...](https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-library-
fines-eliminated-20190930-liidgxi62nb4tnnmfmnlphykja-story.html)

Curious to see some library data guru openly analyze the consequences...

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jcims
They should work with the post office to accept returns. I live ten miles away
from the closest library. It never makes sense to drive there solely to return
a book and I work from home 95% of the time, so I’m rarely there by chance. As
a result, i never go to the library.

If i could chuck the book into my mailbox to return it I’d stop by more often.

~~~
kylek
I wonder if a "DVD-era Netflix-style" library could be a thing? i.e. a paid-
postage return envelope included when you check a book out. (I'm guessing the
physical size of a DVD is the only thing that made that trick viable for
netflix)

~~~
jcims
Possibly. My thinking with the post office is that they would only work with
the local library system, and to keep costs down even more could even just
collect the books at the post office and someone from the library would
collect them.

Lots of logistics and not very likely but I know it would remove my primary
impediment to using the local library.

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supernova87a
Well, of course this is because everyone who had weeks/months of fines built
up on overdue books is taking the opportunity to turn them in while they can
with no penalty.

Whether a library that _starts_ with a no-fine policy can sustain that is
highly doubtful. What are we going to resort to, the librarian calling each
borrower and asking nicely?

Maybe we should eliminate penalties for everything in life, because they're
discriminatory or inequitable towards people who can't afford them. Remove
speeding tickets, late fees for unpaid taxes, etc.

In fact, we should just remove prices for everything -- prices tend to reduce
access to everything and make things inequitable!

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SubiculumCode
Many libraries have a defined late-fee (e.g., $.50/day, regardless of whether
the book is an expensive full color monster, or a children's book. Anyone here
with children will probably agree that when you check out books for your
little children, you are getting not one but 10 (or more) children's books.
This discourages families from checking out books for their children, because
even a few days late on 10 children's books starts to add up fast!

------
nbanks
Presuming you still can't borrow a new book if you have overdue books at home,
and you still have to pay for lost books, this seems reasonable. It reminds me
of the old-school netflix DVD rental system where you can keep a movie as long
as you want, but can't get a new one until you return the previous one. It
also reminds me of being able to take out books for 3-5 months at a time as a
grad student--it was so much nicer than undergrad!

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knocte
If no fines, what prevents the people from taking the books and not return
them again? Wanting to borrow new books? Ah, fair enough. (Just putting this
out loud for people which didn't reach this conclusion yet, it took me a
while.)

PS: Maybe the real way to fix this is paying a deposit upfront when becoming a
member of the library, which is not high price, just the cost of an average
book. You'd get this deposit when you decide to stop being a member.

~~~
sircastor
People tend to behave differently with libraries than typical economics might
suggest. People view the library as a shared resource, something the community
owns together. The resistance to returning the borrowed items more often comes
from embarrassment or shame than it does entitlement or attempted theft.

~~~
usrusr
I fully agree. If they could somehow reframe the fine into a positive
contribution they would not have to resort to short term hacks [0] like
zeroing the fine.

How could that reframing work? Instead of free limited time lending plus
optional fine after n days, make it a rental, but with the first n days free.
If you return on time that's fine, but you're a freeloader then. Those who
take their time with the books are the true supporters. Nobody will
perpetually postpone returning because they feel uneasy about admitting
wrongdoing (no matter how small).

[0] I believe it's only short term because bad habits usually take time to
develop. Long term, the negatives will outweigh the positives. The person who
would systematically take advantage of zero fine doesn't use the library,
_yet_.

------
beefsack
We did this recently in Canberra too, to similar effect[1]. Apparently it is
becoming quite common in a growing number of cities.

[https://www.theguardian.com/australia-
news/2019/nov/01/canbe...](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-
news/2019/nov/01/canberras-libraries-join-nationwide-trend-of-scrapping-fines-
for-late-books)

------
datashow
Yes, you see surge of returns at the moment. But I would expect there will be
a dramatic increase of overdues as a terrible long term effect.

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brudgers
About five or six years ago, my local library eliminated fines for overdue
books. I suspect it paid for itself pretty quickly based on my use. Prior to
eliminating fines, I'd renew by email. Staff would process the email into the
system.

Or I wouldn't renew by email, and then staff would handle my payment next time
I checked out. At ten cents a day, odds were staff would break a bill. Staff
would write a receipt and enter stuff in the computer system.

Manual work for a few cents. Manual work that didn't help anyone use the
library. Manual work that didn't make the library better. Manual work that
wasn't worth doing.

It was petty work involving petty cash. Paying fines didn't make anyone happy.
Collecting fines didn't make staff happy. The fines were just inertia. Fines
never motivated me to return books on time. What motivated me to return books
on time was believing that returning books on time was good for the library.
That didn't change when fines went away.

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PeterisP
Our local library has a monthly "amnesty day" where you can return books and
get new ones with the late fees waived. So if the fees are a problem for you,
you come on that particular day; but if you're just late and want a different
book now, then you pay a dollar or so.

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chrischen
Between not paying fines and not paying fines, of course people are going to
choose to not pay fines.

~~~
geofft
But that's not the choice, the choice is between paying the fine or being
unable to use the library.

The whole idea behind fines is that 1) imposing fines motivates people to
return books on time and 2) disabling future borrowing motivates people to pay
the fine, thereby making the motivation from 1 actually work. I don't think
it's an "of course" level of obviousness that this scheme doesn't work in
practice—otherwise libraries would have abandoned fines long ago.

~~~
baddox
But according to your logic, you would also oppose the first library doing
this by making the same claim: that if it were obvious, it would have happened
long ago.

Maybe it’s the case that the library has new information and/or is committed
to a new or reinvigorated mission, and that this decision is an obvious step
toward accomplishing that mission.

------
andrewstuart
Makes sense. Send a reminder instead of a fine notice.

"Return our book and it will cost you $X. Keep it forever and it will cost you
nothing". That's a poor mechanic.

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tedunangst
Chicago made you pay the fine when you returned the book? You can't just drop
it in the return and pay the fine later when you want to check out another
book?

~~~
smadge
I don’t know if this is what goes through people’s heads, but why bother to
spend the time to return the book and lose access to its utility when you can
just keep it.

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quotemstr
It's weird that in an era of zero-cost digital availability of practically
everything mankind has ever produced we still care about the details of
distributing printed-out copies of books.

Digital distribution has zero marginal cost and practically everyone has a
device capable of reading the entire archive of humanity. Why do we still care
about _books_ per se?

~~~
perseaamericana
First of all, if you look up Ebook library licensing fee, you'll see the crazy
clusterfuck of ridiculous charges, so it's no where near "zero marginal cost".
It should be, but it isn't.

Secondly, speaking as someone who is fully on-board on ebooks, for some books,
such as large reference books, design/photography books and children books,
physical books are still the way to go.

Plus extended reading on a tiny mobile phone is not feasible for many people,
and not everyone can afford a large screen device for reading.

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wazoox
There are many similar cases: when some school started fining late parents,
more parents came in even later (because, after all, they paid to get their
children cared for, so why bother?). It's a well known effect. Fines often
reduce the feeling of responsibility.

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devy
Many parents know one of the good parenting rules is that incentivizing good
behaviors works better than punishment for bad behaviors. This is another case
where it applies to human behavior beyond children.

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Chris2048
All books are not equal; some are worth little (or negative; lots of old books
are destroyed), some are worth a lot; which are we talking about here?

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Spooky23
My library did this a couple of years ago and made a big production about how
progressive they were.

Instead of a fine with a cap ($5 iirc), they suspend your card.

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TurkishPoptart
Same thing is happening for Seattle public libraries starting Jan 1.

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spullara
Netflix vs Blockbuster

