BOOK BORROWERS FINED

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 176, 26 June 1926, Page 4

BOOK BORROWERS FINED

LOAN PERIOD EXCEEDED. A REGULATION ENFORCED. CHRISTCHURCH, June 23. “I am quite satisfied that by enforcing the regulation -which gives us power to inflict fines Upon those who take books from the library and keep them for long-overdue periods we are getting the result we desire,” said Mr E. J. Bell, librarian at the Christchurch Public Library, this mofning. “The books are being returned expeditiously and the work is becoming a great deal lighter for everyone here,” said Mr Bell. “We have had one or two instances where people complained about the fines, but when the position .was explained to them they saw our point of view and said no more about it. Before we discovered that the laxity on our part in enforcing the regulation was the cause of the trouble, there were about 500 or 600 books missing from the library. This number has now been reduced to less than 300. Some of the books were held overdue by subscribers for four and five months. This greatly imr paired the work of the library and was a source of complaint. I personally went to a subscriber’s house and collected six books which had been taken out four months previous to my visit. Things are a great deal brighter now, however,” concluded Mr Bell, “and it is pleasing to see such a decided improvement.”