I think the best system would be something like a $200 fully refundable deposit, plus late fees (deducted from your deposit account). Account must not drop below $180 due to accrued late fees, or use of library is suspended.
If you don't return books for an excessively long period, like six months, their value is automatically deducted from your deposit on top of accrued late fees; then you may keep the books.
> I think the best system would be something like a $200 fully refundable deposit, plus late fees (deducted from your deposit account). Account must not drop below $180 due to accrued late fees, or use of library is suspended.
One of the most blinkered views I've seen on HN. Who exactly do you think benefits from libraries the most? It sure isn't people who have a lazy $200 sitting around.
The library could actually pay a reasonable interest on that, say, a bit better than a bank account. So there would be no downside in parking the 200 there rather than a bank account.
To my house? To read them? You’re coming across as pretty siloed in these comments.
There’s no reason why we should deny people below the poverty line the ability to read books outside the confines of the library walls. The entire functionality of the library is to be a public good, providing the products and services that allow everyone to enrich themselves. If it wasn’t, it would be a weird nationalized chain of book stores.
As myself and several other people have pointed out to you now across multiple comment trees, there are a vast number of people who have housing but do not have $200 of liquid capital to drop as a library deposit.
But to short circuit this insanity a bit: why. Why is this recommendation desirable? Can you point to any negative impact that has occurred at any library that has just stopped charging late fees and switched to “bring back old book to get new books”, as has occurred here? If not… why are you so determined to invent a new solution without understanding the library’s usage demographics, when what they picked for themselves seems to be working.
One benefit would be that the library could clamp down on the damage. Library books are really treated like shit in my area of the world. Books and other materials. You can hardly borrow a disc that is not scratched to the point of being unusable. People would think twice before damaging borrowed items, if there is a deposit at stake.
> there are a vast number of people who have housing but do not have $200 of liquid capital to drop as a library deposit.
Be that as it may, they aren't prevented from using library under this proposal. Those who care to will somehow scrape the deposit together, and their money is entirely safe provided they don't damage borrowed materials or don't return them for half a year.
The New York public library will still charge a replacement fee for broken items. Late fees don't have any relation to their policy on care of lent items. If items at your library are consistently broken, it's a problem with your library's implementation or choice of policies, not a problem with its users.
>It's a heck of a lot easier to collect that from a deposit your already have.
Not sure where you live, but almost 2/3 of American households don't have enough cash to cover a $500 emergency[0]. What makes you think they can spare $200 for a library deposit?
Here we go, another subthread about the god forsaken poor in America and the offensive $200 proposal (which is just a rough idea that could easily be amended with flexibilities and provisions for the poor).
OK, I will bite. What makes me think they can spare $200 for a library deposit?
The fact that it (1) it doesn't come up as an emergency (you can budget for it in advance) and (2) they know they can have all of it back whenever they want to take a break from borrowing from the library, and have returned all their loans. (Unless they are idiots who trash books.) The psychology of "I'm losing 200 dollars" isn't there.
Whereas a $500 emergency is just: oh no; goodbye, money!
People have a way of not having money when they have to cover some unexpected pure loss. Yet somehow they have iPhones, Playstations, designer sneakers and jeans, ...
And then again, maybe some people really, actually cannot do it. So, have a $20 deposit with more modest borrowing privileges. Or some other creative way.
>You could enumerate the fallacies and misunderstandings in order of appearance, then pick a tiny random number in that range and begin with that one.
Why would someone wish to do that? No one is required to disabuse you of your ignorance. Especially given the trollish comments you've plastered all over this sub.
70% of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings. Many of the people who most benefit from libraries live paycheck to paycheck and libraries want to help those people and want those people to use their services. That's a major portion of the target market. These people have a hard time saving as they don't have any significant excess income. As they say, it's expensive to be poor.
It is not only unreasonable ands unrealistic to expect these people to be able to save up a $200 deposit, it is also bad customer experience and restricting libraries' market access. If libraries were a tech company any decent product owner would shoot down the idea in a flash.
a book
That would preclude the significant majority of use of public libraries; a $200 deposit is absolutely crippling to someone living in poverty, and unattainable for almost all children and students.
i don't think you realize for how many families having to find an extra $200 to just leave sitting around as a deposit at the library would be an extreme hardship or just plain impossible.
It's a lot of families.
To get a sense of how many, 40% of Americans surveyed say that they would have trouble paying an unexpected $400 expense. That they'd have to sell something or neglect other bills, or it would otherwise be a challenge, or impossible.
Why stop at books? Why can't libraries branch out into, say, tools.
A poor person needing a nail gun and air compressor to fix up their shack should just be able to get that from the library, and not have to pay some capitalistic swine like Home Depot or whoever.
No late fees ... return it next week, next month, whenever y'know?
In practice, there’s more hurdles for tools, since they have more risk of harming the user, but they seem like they’re possible to overcome.
Oh look, we aren’t the first ones to have this idea: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_library “ Given their increasing popularity and proven history of success, tool libraries and tool banks are now playing a role in the sharing economy and can be found in local public libraries and makerspaces, for instance. There are software platforms for managing tool and other types of lending libraries”
Actually it's everyone else in this thread who is sheltered and privileged. They are exhibiting typical sheltered, privileged, educated class values and rhetoric around the issue of class. I think I tipped over a particular sacred cow here. Could it be that the library institution is regarded as sort of the modern equivalent of missionary work? And so it is easy to slip into blasphemy if you're discussing libraries. In America, libraries offer the hope that the throngs of unsavory rabble out there can be converted into odor-free-farting, educated liberals, cast in one's own image.
My local library has done this with a variety of kitchen implements, like mixers, ice cream makers, cake pans, etc. I think it's a great way to use something once or twice without having one more thing around the house.
$200 is a totally unattainable sum of money for many, many people, often and especially for those to whom the library offers the most benefit -- those who need help finding education, internet access, and a safe/dry place to exist.
That's a separate discussion; I didn't propose that a card be required just to enter the library, and that this card require a deposit. It's just for borrowing materials to take somewhere else.
By the way, if you need a safe/dry place to exist, and the library is it, why would you need to borrow books to take somewhere else? Books also need a safe/dry place to exist!
If you can't put down a $200 refundable (with interest) balance, how are you maintaining a place where you can take the books?
Oh wow. You really have no idea how a huge number of Americans live.
Also, even homeless people are allowed to borrow books from a public library, in fact! But, no, there are many many people who struggle and hustle and have a place to live but don't have an extra $200 to leave sitting at the library.
You don't need to be ashamed that you literally don't know any of them, assuming you live in the USA, America is a really segregated (and I don't just mean racially) society. It's not your choice or fault. But you could be aware of it, believe me, to ask that question you have no idea how a good chunk of the USA lives.
(But also... can you imagine any business that required a $200 deposit to have an account with them, and how that would effect their business? Like imagine grubhub or blueapron or something. Even people that can afford $200 really don't want to begin their relationship with a business by giving them $200 to hold. Occasionally a 'business' which someone really has no choice but to use, like the electric utility, gets away with requiring a deposit. The mission of a public library is serving as many people as it can, a policy that drastically reduced the number of people interested in using the library would be a huge failure for the library).
If you think that everybody with a place to live has $200 to spare, as you said, then you don't understand how many Americans life.
But anyway, I'm glad you're not running any of my municipal services, and am glad that you (hopefully) aren't my neighbor!
So, okay, you _know_ how many people couldn't afford the $200 deposit, and don't see this as a problem because you don't think they deserve library service?
I'm sorry, I misunderstood your original point, or I wouldn't have bothered talking to you.
> am glad that you (hopefully) aren't my neighbor!
So it's OK for you to have standards: someone who merely doesn't subscribe to the whole white, liberal, upper-middle class socio-econo-political guilt-ridden value system is not fit to live next door to you.
But a library must not have lending standards that even smell of having any socio-economic entanglement.
You may do well by taking a look at some statistics on poverty in the US. There’s a significant chunk of the population who can keep a book dry but don’t have $200 to just sink into this imaginary library deposit. The interest is irrelevant, you’re asking them to choose between “get books” and “buy food”. All to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
I was in the middle of typing out a response, but looking at your parallel comments, the fact that you outright just don’t think people living in poverty are worthy of using a public service suggests this root node has bottomed out.
It's not that, but rather, this thread has basically been steered by various individuals into revolving purely around this issue of some extremely poor not being able to put up a deposit. I'm not interested in that angle at all; the idea isn't conceived to keep those people from borrowing from the perspective that they are specifically a problem (which they are not). People who can put up the deposit cause problems; it is designed for them, not as a wall against those who cannot.
It takes little imagination to see that the scheme could be shaped in ways to accommodate the very poor. E.g. there doesn't have to be a minimum deposit of $200; a substantially lower deposit like $20 or $10 could some borrowing privileges. Book or two, not twelve kind a thing. Plus any number of other mitigating solutions.
Memberships would not require a deposit. Like to log in to an Internet terminal with your library ID would not require one. Lost library cards could be free as well.
Needless to say, this would be completely ridiculous outside of America. If I think about libraries in, hmm, Austria or Japan doing anything this, I just have shake my head, no.
There is a broad population segment in America that has no respect though.
The $200 deposit would effectively never be refunded though right? I think libraries would see a huge decline in usage if a library card cost $200, even if it's a lifetime membership.
Of course it would be. People move away, or decide the library is not their thing any more. Interest should be accrued too, so people don't see a down-side to parking the money there compared to a savings account.
You go up to the desk, say you want to cancel your account, hand in your card and get your money back, no questions asked.
Wait, so now, in order to provide public library services, that are generally free, you want libraries to essentially function as banks and carry account balances and pay out interest?
My dude, I don't think you really understand the goals or objectives of public libraries.
My view is shaped by the observation that libraries in my neck of the woods in fact attach an account balance to your card. You can pay your balance self-serve using a terminal that accepts bank cards.
We live in the same neck of the woods, based on your HN profile; there is a balance tracked at Vancouver Public Libraries that is based on late fees. It's also worth noting that VPL wants to get rid of late fees as well, based on this article from a few months ago. https://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-libraries-offering-fine-forg...
Similar to how privately run businesses budget to take shoplifting into account as an operational expense, so too can libraries. Imagine if Whole Foods charged every customer $200/year as "insurance" for those who do shoplift, there probably wouldn't be many shoppers who would accept this change without also changing how often they shop there (or stop altogether), and that's even considering that most Whole Foods shoppers are likely financially stable enough to afford to pay that out of pocket.
Unlike Whole Foods, though, as a public good (and already funded by the taxes of everyone who walks in the doors), libraries have a mission to make books accessible to as many people as possible, not just those who can pay what's a $200 fee, nor are they trying to make a profit, so they have even less incentive than Whole Foods to punish their patrons.
> Imagine if Whole Foods charged every customer $200/year as "insurance" for those who do shoplift.
That makes no sense; you are not talking about a refundable deposit that is only deducted in confirmed cases of shoplifting. People do not borrow food from Whole foods and then fail to return it.
Deposits are standard operating practice in rental businesses. Have you ever rented a tool? They will put the replacement cost of the tool (possibly into the hundreds of dollars) as a charge on your credit card, which is then reversed when you return it, minus the $15 rental or whatever.
> That makes no sense; you are not talking about a refundable deposit that is only deducted in confirmed cases of shoplifting. People do not borrow food from Whole foods and then fail to return it.
"A refundable deposit that is only deducted in confirmed cases of shoplifting" is, for all practical purposes, an additional fee that would remain out of your pocket for as long as you want to have a right to the library, even if you have no intention to steal, which is more or less the same as Whole Foods just deciding to charge $200 to any potential shopgoer for the right to enter their store. Refundable or not, that's $200 that is gone from your pocket until you either move (and then pay another $200 fee at a different city's library?) or give up your membership.
Our access to libraries are already funded by our taxes. We've already paid for access. Why disincentivize people to use what we all pay for, other than to justify spending less tax money on libraries because not as many people are going?
> Have you ever rented a tool?
Yes, actually. Most recently, Home Depot just put a $30 charge for a $3500 lawnmower on my card -- with the threat that if I don't return it within a certain amount of time I'll owe it in total. They did not ever put the total cost of $3500 on my card.
It's been some time since I lend books from the library that I had to pay late fees. But in university I had to lend many books, sometimes just for an initial literature scan only to return most of them and keep a few long-term. (Or ideally buy them through other channels eventually) I remember one book was very late and I had to pay fees far higher than the original book price. And the only reason was because the lending management was bad (=had a terrible UX) so I didn't know it was due. That was not ideal, as a student you usually don't have much money.
But I think damaged books are usually those that are used frequently. Rare and expensive books tend to be in great shape, even if they are lend out all the time. You just need to register in time for the next available extension slot. Also expensive/rare books are less frequently for take home available.
Having to have an extra $200 around to leave as a deposit at the library would exclude many many library patrons, and is definitely not the "best system". It's one of the worst possible systems.
Where I live, you need a similar deposit just to get electricity in your place, if you don't have credit.
A patron is generally someone who pays.
Nobody is paying in this situation; there is a deposit which is refundable, with reasonable interest competitive with bank savings accounts in the area.
Where I live, the (one and only) power company charges deposits against new accounts with no credit or bad credit:
Why would a library not charge deposits for borrowing? Because people need to be able to take books home (as opposed to reading in the library) more than they need electricity?
Because public libraries are public services and are not a for-profit industry. Their priorities are in serving the public, rather than generating income.
An alternative question could be: Why doesn't BC make electricity as available to their poorest citizens as NY makes books available to theirs?
Late fees: pay small fee, borrow books.
No late fees: pay for replacement, borrow books.
I think the best system would be something like a $200 fully refundable deposit, plus late fees (deducted from your deposit account). Account must not drop below $180 due to accrued late fees, or use of library is suspended.
If you don't return books for an excessively long period, like six months, their value is automatically deducted from your deposit on top of accrued late fees; then you may keep the books.