
Ottawa Library fines people using unreliable automatic calling system (1994) - cnst
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/16.54.html#subj2
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tekstar
Since this is oddly on the front page I want to shout out the OPL for being a
great place for everybody. I love libraries. There are so few places you can
go with no expectation that you will purchase something.

OPL also has a $100k makerspace available at the Centerpointe location with
multiple 3D printers,scanners, and laser cutters. All available for free (if
you can book a spot!)

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ptasker
For real, the OPL is awesome. Great spaces and they even rent out video games.

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red-indian
For years my public library charged a $3 fee to get a book sent from another
library in the system.

At some point I was chatting with a librarian about this and she revealed they
had eliminated the fee so as not to discourage the use of interlibrary loans.

I few weeks later I tried checking out something from another library and was
then treated to a 10 minute lecture on how it costs them $20 to process these
loans and am I really sure I want it.

No thanks. I'll just get it for a penny plus $3.99 shipping from amazon, less
than the cost of gasoline to drive into town to order it, pick it up, and
return it (3 round trips).

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derefr
> No thanks. I'll just get it for a penny plus $3.99 shipping from amazon,
> less than the cost of gasoline to drive into town to order it, pick it up,
> and return it (3 round trips).

Says Mr. Fancy-pants here with a mailbox/street-accessible doorstep that
packages can fit in/on.

Us apartment-dwellers often end up with a notice that says that FedEx or
whichever last-mile carrier couldn't in good conscience leave your box in the
apartment lobby (and, implicitly, couldn't be arsed to come up the elevator
and put the box in front of your apartment door) so instead they have driven
your package back to the nearest FedEx warehouse half-way across town, where
you're welcome to [pay for the gas required to] come get it. After, of course,
waiting 30 minutes behind several people each taking 10 minutes to _send_
packages, before you can spend 30 seconds _receiving_ yours.

Oh, and although you could have intercepted the delivery-man like a linebacker
to receive your package today, because you didn't, it won't be available at
the warehouse until tomorrow afternoon. Or maybe four days from now. And
that's if they don't put it back on a truck to attempt to deliver it again,
and again, and again (and give you no way to specify in the delivery
instructions that they should just _stop trying_.)

And after they _do_ finally give up putting it on the truck, they'll make sure
to only wait a few days before they send it back to whoever sent it to you,
making the sender eat a huge shipping cost that'll make them unlikely to ever
send you anything again.

For me, receiving an Amazon delivery both costs more, and takes more time,
than buying the same thing in a brick-and-mortar retail store, let alone going
to the library!

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sarah180
This may be an obnoxious comment, but if you haven't considered Amazon Locker,
you should see if there's one near you. I can say from experience that there
are a lot of them around even modestly sized cities and they can make this a
_lot_ easier.

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derefr
There are indeed a few Amazon Lockers around my city, but none less than a 15
minute drive away. The closest thing Amazon would consider _treating_ as a
locker (i.e. have Amazon Logistics fulfill to) is my own local post office,
which 1. is so understaffed that it takes just as long to pick up a package
from it as from the FedEx across town, and 2. for some reason triggers "this
item has special handling restrictions and cannot be delivered to your
location" messages on 90% of Amazon's catalog.

Also, with a Locker, you still have to get the thing home. Often I'm ordering
things delivered because they're too big+heavy+awkward to lug home from a
store myself (I don't own a car!), so the Locker doesn't really help in those
cases. In many of those cases, the thing won't even _fit_ in a Locker.

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ramshorns
The author mentions parking tickets as a possible future automatic fine that
could be unreliable. Red light cameras were introduced in Ontario in 1998,
which automatically issue fines to the vehicle owner, and automatic speed
enforcement is being rolled out now.

I guess the difference is that it improves road safety, which library fines
don't, and that you can contest the ticket with a human in traffic court.

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nogabebop23
>> I guess the difference is that it improves road safety

Exactly - just like when I want to change the way my kids are acting:

I pick a random occurrence of a specific behaviour, punish them well after the
fact and they inevitably draw the correct cause => effect linkage and never
repeat the targeted behaviour again.

</s>

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tom_
While drivers are in many respects indistinguishable from children, they are
in fact adults, and can typically figure things out from the explanation that
accompanies the punishment.

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tantalor
> if you do not pick up the book in three days, you are fined $2.00

Why would a library fine you for _not_ borrowing a book? That is the opposite
of how libraries work!

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nogabebop23
Because you can go online and place holds on many books and the library will
ship them to your prefered branch once available and then shelve them for
pick-up. There's a significant amount of effort and cost, plus most holds are
for the same limited supply of popular books; while your hold is sitting there
counteless others are waiting.

The fine is to discourage making hold requests and then never claiming them.

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andi999
Maybe it got canned because the pickup dates are not predictable. If I place
hold on a book with e.g. two holds on it already by somebody else, the book
will be ready in 2 month if each person keeps the book for 1 month. If each
person returns it on the spot its basically 2 days. Good luck planning your
holidays ard that.

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ogre_codes
Every library I've been to has told me the return date when I checked out the
book and stamped on the library card or receipt you get when checking out the
book. For decades there was no phone call/ notification, you'd get a letter in
the mail after you'd already started racking up late fees.

Regardless of how broken their notification system is, keeping track of the
return date has always been the borrower's responsibility.

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jackcarter
This is about the notification that a book is ready for pickup.

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nogabebop23
yes - Calgary used to fine you $2 if you did not pick up a hold within 7 days,
now it just expires. I wonder if it was the same specific motivation or the
PITA of collecting fines in general.

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prroyston
I worked for the Calgary Public Library when we eliminated it. Partly the PITA
for the patron but more importantly was we wanted people to borrow more and
not be limited. If you were going to Peru and we had 7 books that looked
interesting to you, you could order them in and decide at pickup if you wanted
them all. If 6 them were crappy oh well - that was difficult when we charged
$2 a hold, you wouldn’t risk ordering 7 books to your library. The point of
the library is to facilitate your access to the bed information in the form
that is best for you. The borrowing limit remains 99 items per person.

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bobbiechen
Nice. The SF public library also eliminated overdue fines recently [1] - I
found that it made going to the library a little less stressful, knowing that
if I missed the return deadline by a day or two I wouldn't be fined.

[1]
[https://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=2001163901](https://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=2001163901)

