Is Seattle Public Library Trying to Turn Late Fees into User Fees?

Part of the Library's budget now goes to keep all its windows shiny.

In desperate times, the first move is outsource economic responsibility onto a specific, but not-too-vocal "sinning" population. State facing a multi-billion-dollar deficit? Soda-drinkers, gum-chewers, you're up. Library facing cutbacks? Late-returners, whip out the checkbook.

But with desperation driving the change, these responses are not necessarily fair or effective. It's one thing to recoup formerly externalized costs, and in so doing plug a leaky budget. It's another to try to reach into people's wallets for what's handy. Especially when it comes to publicly funded services, like libraries.

On Monday, the Seattle Public Library sent out a news release saying they were "considering" raising fines for overdue materials "to encourage their timely return for use by others and to help offset budget reductions."

But the rest of the release is short on the timely return strategy, and long on how the extra income would help the Library make up for the $3 million in budget cuts they are implementing this year. By "short," I mean there is no evidence provided at all of the scope of late returns, or an estimation of the impact of a $0.10 increase, to $0.25 per day for books, from $0.15. (Fees range depending upon the item borrowed.)

The Library's release provides no information on the scope of the late-return problem. There was nothing to indicate the methodology they had used to reach a fee increase that would optimally affect on-time return rates.

I emailed the Library's communications director, Andra Addison, the following, but haven't heard back:

I'm wondering what the background numbers are on late returns in general. How big a problem is it? Are most late returns within a week of due date, or do a significant number stretch out for more than that? I ask because even $0.25 a day is an absurdly low amount when it comes to prompting a behavioral change. [...] If you've got research on this I'd love to hear about it.

The lack of information is irksome because the Library is requesting "public comment on the proposed changes to fines and fees at its 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 25 meeting at the Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., Level 4." What sort of comment do they expect to hear if they have not provided any rationale for the change, other than, "We'd like to charge people more money again"?

Even the five cent increase for printing from computers (to $0.15 per page) is not accompanied by the most basic assurance that this covers Library costs, or is x percentage of the costs. Again, I'm not arguing that fees should or shouldn't increase--my initial take is that if late returns are a real issue, a dime increase isn't going to give you much leverage. But what, exactly, is the plan here?

UPDATE: I still don't know what the plan is, but Andra did send me details on the Library's overdue materials. The good news is that right at this moment, 92.7 percent of the 412,000 items checked out are not overdue. Then about half of the overdue materials are overdue one week or less, and half are more than that. A full 3,000 are a month (or more) overdue; if SPL could shake the late fee increase out of them, that'd be $9,000 more than currently, $22,500 altogether.

Still, 6,000 items are between one week and two weeks overdue. That's not, "Whoops, I forgot this was due yesterday." It's a whole borrower cycle (for books, two one for DVDs, which get checked out one two weeks at a time). If SPL increases the fee by ten cents, to a quarter, this group might pay (let's split the difference, at 10.5 days) a total of $15,750. That just $2.62 in fees per item.

Now think about this as a library borrower: How much is it worth it to you to not wait an extra two weeks to get a book? And how much would it take to get you to run to the library in the middle of the night to avoid another day of overdue fees? Is $2.62 the answer?

As I write this, I'm starting to think the best solution is graduated fees. The first week overdue, perhaps the $0.25 fee. But longer than that, I'd guess that at least $1 per day is needed to provoke the frantic searching necessary to get the item returned before it gets lost forever. See how consistent that 3,000 overdue items is, at three and four weeks out? $1 per day might even generate the same amount of money from the two-week overdue group, while cutting down on the number of overdue items drastically.

The additional factor to consider is the relationship between time overdue and lost books--if there's a significant correlation (i.e., length of time overdue increases the chance of book loss), you'd want to weight the overdue fees to take into account replacement costs.