Library Tries “Shaming” Readers
with Overdues
In an effort to get overdue books back, the Maury County (Tenn.) Public Library will publish the names of the worst offenders in the Columbia Daily Herald.
“If shaming them into bringing the books back will work, well then, that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Director Elizabeth Potts told the Nashville Tennessean.
Potts told American Libraries the library is losing $8,000 to $10,000 annually to overdues, a substantial chunk in a library with a book budget last year of $18,000. A three-week amnesty period netted only 50 books. Some of the bills date back to 1995; one offender had 36 books worth $436.
The problem is that the library doesn’t have an automation system and county commissioners have told Potts that they won’t pay for one. She said the library budget is less than 1% of the county budget, adding that one of the commissioners told her that he considered the library “a necessary evil.”
Posted October 18, 1999.
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