Your MORE Responsibilities

Happy New Year! Here's hoping 2012 is a year of happiness, prosperity and regular library usage for your family.

If you don't have a card or someone in your family doesn't have a card, be sure to get one this year. If you do decide to get one, you'll notice on the back of the card you'll fill out that the following points are covered under a heading that reads "By becoming a MORE library cardholder I accept the following responsibilities:"

• "Any library materials checked out on my card are my sole responsibility.


• "I will promptly return all borrowed items by the due date or pay overdue charges.


• "I will pay any replacement costs assessed for lost, unreturned or damaged materials."

In the last month or so, I have had to deal with several less-than-pleasant situations wherein I had to explain to people who had checked out items that were returned grievously damaged or after long periods of being overdue that they would be held responsible for the replacement costs or the sizable fines. With all the tact my mother taught me to use, I have had to point the above agreed-to responsibilities out to library users, reminding them of the contract they signed with us, before politely insisting that they recoup the library for damaged, destroyed or long-overdue items.

We live in an imperfect world, and it's impossible to always tell with mathematical certitude where, how or at whose hands damaged or destroyed library materials met their fate, and I am certain that some good people who frequent the library have been made to pay for damage not done by them or their children since I have been director. If this error occurs, the fault is completely mine. But one of my responsibilities as library director is to ensure the health of this library's collection (and to bear the disdain of those who pay under protest).

Let me say, however, that we of the library do not leap for joy when our books return to us with pages torn out or marker scribbles or coffee stains across half of the pages. We don't see damaged books as a chance to "get over" on the public or punish wrongdoers. It is often with heavy hearts that we tell esteemed patrons they'll have to pay for a book damaged while they had it checked out. And paying fines for books kept long past their due dates can be thought of as recouping us the cost of having to get the book from another library in the MORE system (a service which all users pay for).

I thought I'd take this first blog posting of 2012 as an opportunity to explain our thought processes and to ensure our users that, even if we get it wrong, our hearts are in the right place. We hope that's clear.