Well, probably not the noble librarian per se, rather it's their puppeteer City Council.
Have you ever suspected the local metropolitan library doesn't have your best interests at heart when they send overdue notice emails only after the item has accrued 7 days of fines?
Naturally, a warning email 3 days in advance so you can return the item would be impossible!
Okay, this is obviously a petty peeve but I find it galling as an out-of-town user that otherwise tech-savvy institutions ingenuously play dumb in this area.
To fight back against the buttoned down tyranny of passive-aggressive revenue gathering I direct you to the website LibraryElf.
Register and load your cards onto the site and it will give you due-date warnings, hold notifications and other simple features that apparently are beyond our local libraries.
This is particularly useful if you subscribe to several libraries, for example city and university, and have children in the household.
Check out LibraryElf.
Have you ever suspected the local metropolitan library doesn't have your best interests at heart when they send overdue notice emails only after the item has accrued 7 days of fines?
Naturally, a warning email 3 days in advance so you can return the item would be impossible!
Okay, this is obviously a petty peeve but I find it galling as an out-of-town user that otherwise tech-savvy institutions ingenuously play dumb in this area.
To fight back against the buttoned down tyranny of passive-aggressive revenue gathering I direct you to the website LibraryElf.
Register and load your cards onto the site and it will give you due-date warnings, hold notifications and other simple features that apparently are beyond our local libraries.
This is particularly useful if you subscribe to several libraries, for example city and university, and have children in the household.
Check out LibraryElf.
Aha! You've made a post here that resonates with me.
ReplyDeleteOur family are regular users of the public library, and have been hit with many 30 cent to one or two dollars of fines.
The pettiness of being hit with a fine for being a day or two late (and then multiplied out by several books) seems ridiculous.
Our library doesn't send warning emails, or even overdue emails. We get a letter in the mail, and with that they can justify all of the expenses of having to recoup postage, the multi-million dollar computer system and what not.
Half the problem is that they have computerized to the point that the return date is no longer written / stamped on the inside borrowing slip, but on a printout for the 5 or 6 books. Invariably we return all but one, which gets mixed in with the next batch so comes as a surprise to us that we are returning several books early and one book late.
"That'll be 50 cents please"
No excuse for it these days. We send out a courtesy email notice the day before they're due, and an overdue notice the day after they're due, ie before they actually start accruing fines at day 2 over. Of course, your city council may be regarding the overdue fines as useful cost recovery...
ReplyDeleteI also heartily recommend Library Elf, especially to those who end up with books from multiple libraries.
My library doesn't send courtesy emails, and the books no longer have a due date attached to them.
ReplyDeleteBut I wont offer those up as excuses, just wish the library wasn't so petty about the small fines.
Oh, and while I'm on the horse, I think they should stay out of the DVD and video market and spend the money on books.
Our library is woefully lacking in a good range of books, and yet try to put the local DVD shop out of business with highly debatable low quality (content) DVDs. What's their game with that one?
Yes Greg, it's all part of the VLWC...
ReplyDeleteWouldn't advance warning emails be seen as spam by most...
What happened to taking responsibility...do we expect the nanny library state to do everything for us...
Emails? Last time I went to a library the closest thing they had to technology was automatic doors and a microfiche...
...and am I writing like philu now...?
"What happened to responsibility"
ReplyDeletewell, I thought I was clear on my responsibility on the matter: "But I wont offer those up as excuses," said I.
do we expect the nanny library state to do everything for us...
No, we just don't want them to tax us for every little thing, down to 10 cent increments.
You see, one of the points I made about the library books and responsibility was in the old days, before they spent millions on a computer system, they simply stamped the due date in the book, and you could check it.
Now, they have taken that facility away and yet can track your fines over several visits.
You may have been Zen, but I was replying to Greg really.
ReplyDeleteI wonder though, if a video store fines for late return, is it referred to as a "tax" as well? Or only State run video stores (i.e. KiwiEzy")?
Or is there the remote possibility that the fine might act as a deterrent to the would-be slackers so that other people can share the book? Would that be so outrageous?
Yep, tax if its state run.
ReplyDeleteKiwiEzy would be the one where you pay an up front fee (rates) for the shop to exist, plus a percentage from your income tax to keep it running, then a fee to actually rent it even after the taxes (user pays) and then a fee for a late return (outrageously with "use of money" interest clauses etc) just like the IRD.
Meanwhile, they have a few gold pass members (whose membership fee I also pay) don't pay anything themselves, return it very late, and damaged and because they have so many overdue fines, get them waived.
Gold pass? Sorry, Socialism Subscription.
Or am I just being a bit negative?
Funnily enough, my DVD shop cuts me a little slack if I'm a little late.
They stick a marker in the jacket that tells me the actual day its due back and they throw discount vouchers my way. No complaints there.
Sorry Zen, basic cost-effectiveness rules out having live humans apply a due date stamp to your books these days. You get a receipt and that's it.
ReplyDeleteWorth keeping in mind: they do also provide a web site where you can check your account when you get home from the library, to see if there's still anything still booked up to that account with today's due date on it. If there is, click "Renew." I have to do this all the time because I also ditch the receipts and my kids are experts at leaving the books all over the place.
That sounds like a great solution PM, I'll check that out for our library.
ReplyDeleteNot wanting to excite Sunday afternoon economic zealotry, but my observation regards the hilarious perversity that a US based website can provide a service that your local library claims is "unavailable because of data-entry requirements".
ReplyDelete(trying to imply that there is a gnome out-the-back who manually emails each and every person... hmmm... the mythic email gnome at amazon and rabobank must be very busy!)
Um, where does libraryelf get the data from if not the local library itself in the first place? :)
Handy site, that's all I'm saying.
psycho milt obviously works for a reasonable institution and I'd be happy to pay fines under that system. From recent local experience the universities seem to give pre-due warnings the city lib not.
ReplyDeleteI guess this shows that I don't treasure my library receipt and pedantically transcribe it onto the calendar.
Gees, ZT. Right now all 5 "Recommended Posts" are written by you...how does it work that out..? Looks like the 9th floor of NZC are tilting things in your favour. They'll be polishing your Wikipedia profile next!
ReplyDeleteHeh. You noticed. I was wondering if anyone ever bothered to scan down the sidebars etc.
ReplyDeleteMy 9th floor excuse for this one is that I recently emailed my co-authors and asked them to go through and tag any of their posts they wanted with the new tag of "recommended".
The current feed finds the last 5. I suspect my esteemed authors have been too busy to tag anything, or aren't in any particular hurry.
This message is just as much for them as you, as I confess to often going a week without remembering to check my zen email account.
Yeah Greg, the Elf thing looks cool. I didn't see my library on the list though. I'll hassle them about it next time I'm in.
ReplyDelete