Dom Giordano: A little sense is overdue at the Library. (Philadelphia Daily News, 5/15/2013)
Dom is shocked!.....shocked!.... -- actually, he really is, folks -- that the
Philadelphia Free Library is allowing kids to be irresponsible freeloaders, in his worldview, by being exempted from paying library fines.
But some libraries, Dom, are going even farther.
Late? No, fine. (Boston Globe, 3/25/2012)
Some Massachusetts public libraries doing away with fines altogether, including this quartet:
No fines for EVERYONE, Dom.
Excerpt: “Every transaction, which was often only 10 or 20 cents, had a cost associated with it,’’ Mollet said.
“At the rate we were collecting fines, the management cost was greater than the revenue.’’
OK, Dom, I hear the snicker. Massachusetts? Bluer-than-blue, "not-access-but-agenda" Massachusetts.
Well, how about a little Georgia on your mind?
Library System won't charge overdue fines. (Clayton Daily News, 3/30/2011)
Clayton County (GEORGIA) Public Library.
Seven years ago, Marilyn Gardner dared asked the following question in the
Christian Science Monitor: Is the lifting of library fines long overdue?
Oh well, Leslie. As Joe E. Brown said, "Nobody's perfect." (Dom and Leslie are two peas in a pod when it comes to this
Merriam-Webster definition of conservative::
tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions : traditional.
Full disclosure: For 22 years, I was the Director of a
public library that eliminated overdue fines in 1970!!! It works, people; it's worked for 43 years.
