{"id":1158,"date":"2017-11-03T12:35:27","date_gmt":"2017-11-03T17:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/inside.gcschool.org\/gracegazette\/?p=1158"},"modified":"2018-04-03T12:40:33","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T17:40:33","slug":"finally-no-fines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/finally-no-fines\/","title":{"rendered":"Finally No Fines!"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, October 18, the New York Public Library (NYPL) <\/span>pardoned all unpaid fees<\/span><\/a> for children and teenagers living in NYC. The New York Public Library has had a smaller scale forgiveness program in the past. The NYPL used to use a slip program where librarians could hand out fine forgiveness slips to individual students. The old slip program was only available to certain children and it only covered kids with less than 50 dollars in fines. However, the fine forgiveness program on Wednesday was a clean sweep of all children\u2019s fees in the five boroughs. <\/span><\/p>\n

Currently, after a child has racked up $15 or more in fines, they can no longer check out books. After Wednesday\u2019s clean slate, 160,000 children will be able to check books out once again. Although children will not be forgiven for future fines, this program has helped some children with over \u201c<\/span>$<\/span>180<\/span><\/a> in unreturned book fees and fines.\u201d <\/span>Jeffery C. Mays and Sarah Maslin Nir <\/a>\u00a0with the Guardian\u00a0<\/span>reported that the <\/span>JPB Foundation<\/span><\/a> will be paying $2.25 million to make up the bulk of the revenue that the NYPL lost. <\/span><\/p>\n

This clean slate program that the New York Public Library instated is indicative of a larger shift in the library industry. For years there has been a growing debate amongst librarians: should library fees exist? Proponents of banning library fees, such as GCSes librarian Ms. Smith argues, \u00a0\u201cLibrarians want people to love the library and come back because they find things they enjoy, not because they fear they will get a collection letter.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Mays and Nir<\/span><\/a> also reported that some libraries have already taken steps towards fine-free programs: \u201cSince<\/span> 2015<\/span><\/a>, the District of Columbia\u2019s Public Library System has not penalized children 19 and under for late or lost materials.\u201d Additionally, \u201cSan Francisco offered a six-week fine forgiveness period this year, during which it unblocked the cards of more than 5,000 people.\u201d Also, according to the <\/span>Guardian<\/span><\/a> reports that supporters of banning fines argue that \u201cthe first libraries were set up by benefactors who had the vision and ethos of literacy, for all, for free,\u201d not a place that kids begrudgingly go to on a class trip.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, the NYPL relies on \u201crevenue from fines to fund certain <\/span>programs<\/span><\/a>.\u201d The ban of library fees is supposed to get kids to like the library more. However, without the revenue of fees, the library might not be able to fund certain programs that interest kids in the first place. Additionally, librarian <\/span>Sue Williamson<\/span><\/a> argues that \u201cWhen a customer borrows something from a public library, they enter into a contract with the service to look after the item while it is in their possession and return it at a specified time.\u201d This teaches children responsibility and an appreciation for literature. Also, \u201cPublic libraries are a <\/span>community resource<\/span><\/a>\u201d which need to \u201cprovide equal access\u201d for all it\u2019s members and the <\/span>New York Times<\/span><\/a> says that fines help maintain book availability for all children. <\/span><\/p>\n

Although library fines have held the library community together for years, too many members of that same community believe it is time for change, so a shift in the Library industry is coming sooner rather than later. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, October 18, the New York Public Library (NYPL) pardoned all unpaid fees for children and teenagers living in NYC. The New York Public Library has had a smaller… Continue reading “Finally No Fines!”<\/span> <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":1332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[189,188,187,122,191,190],"appful":[],"class_list":["post-1158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-downtown-life","tag-books","tag-fines","tag-libraries","tag-nyc","tag-nypl","tag-reading"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9uEnr-iG","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/FinallyNoFines.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1333,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions\/1333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1158"},{"taxonomy":"appful","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/appful?post=1158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}