Re: GEN: Overdue books

[Carole Carpenter <chcrpntr@UDEL.EDU>]

I do not charge fines.
There are too many children from families which
cannot afford them, the total amounts do not begin to cover the costs of
your time and materials, and they add a disincentive to returning the
books in question.  How many times have you heard "I didn't bring it back
because I didn't have the money?"
In addition, we are dealing with a
generation of parents who had negative experiences with old-style
librarians and are ready to prejudge librarians as unreasonable biddies.
Why pick fights you can not win?

So what do I do?  We have an offense in our discipline policy called
"Disobedience to Staff."  It covers a wide variety of offenses, including
not returning library books.  I send printed notices and attempt
personal contact. If the student has lost or destroyed the book, she must
pay the purchase price, on a payment schedule if necessary. If reminders
fail,  I give the student a detention with the provision that if the book
is handed to me within twenty four hours the detention will be
cancelled.
Then I call the parents and explain the agreement.
VERY few students ever have to stay.  Most return the books.
**(Note of basic human psychology:  There are people who return things and
people who do not.  They apparently are born that way.  We can not change
them.  We can only accept them and help the slackers by providing them
with a motivation to comply.  Pocket change does not provide this
motivation.  Lost of time and inconvenience to the parents does.)**
The extreme few (2 or 3 out of 980 each year) are written up again (each
level of offense carries a higher penalty) until they are in danger of
being suspended.  I have never had a student persist beyond that level in
twenty years on the job.
As a double whammy and increased reminder, at the end of each marking
period I print overdue notices.  Our office staff attaches them to the
report cards.  Students with overdue books do not get their report cards
until the books are returned.  (In theory.  There are slipups.)
Good Luck.


     Carole H. Carpenter         chcrpntr@udel.edu
     Milford Sr. H.S.
     Milford, DE

On Wed, 3 Jan 1996, MRS SUZANNE H FROST wrote:

> It is Jan.3 and I still have a lot of students who have books out
> since Sept. and Oct. There are 350 7th and 8th graders and they do
> use the library a lot. However, it seems that they don't like to
> return overdue books. I charge fines at the end of every marking
> period but that doesn't seem to help. I talk to each student at least
> 5 or 6 times to remind them of their overdue books. That doesn't seem
> to help. Does anyone have success in getting books back? I am
> getting more frustrated as the problem seems to get worse every year.
>
> Thanks for any help.
> Suzanne Frost
> NHZM51A@prodigy.com
>