by LauraLoo
A Charlton, MA mom says her local library crossed the line when they sent police to collect her daughter’s overdue library books.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViYrr1S9MvY[/youtube]
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Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
This is right up there with the detectives who staked out the adult theater where PeeWee Herman was…, well you know.
Somehow I don’t sleep better at night knowing that police are hanging out in adult movie theaters or retrieving library book fines.
However, we should be open to the possibility there is another side to this story, so perhaps it is best reserve any judgment.
The library director said the police were sent as a last resort to 12 patrons who collectively were holding on to over $4000.00 worth of materials and had not responded to any other attempts to contact them. I guess I would ask that mom why they didn’t return the books, or at least respond to other notices! I don’t believe that they hadn’t heard from the library before this.
I am a librarian, and I would just use a taser.
Me too, Courtnay! Where did you get your MLIS?
MLS. Trevecca Nazarene in Nashville.
len 1:22PM
Good point. There usually is another side to a story and the question should be why the mother didn’t make sure her daughter returned the items.
I remember years ago when a local woman went on TV to cry about her water being shut off. After an investigation by the TV team it turned out she hadn’t paid her bill. Dahhhhh. Well, according to her that didn’t give the city the right to shut off her water! Uh, yes it did.
Just proves some people are born without a sense of embarassment.
Hi len,
The TV team then stressed to viewers that when bills aren’t paid, utilities get shut off. Apparently that was news to some of our city’s great thinkers.
Courtnay: I am a librarian, and I would just use a taser.
:-)
Sounds to me like maybe a couple nights in jail for the mother might encourage her to keep on on stuff better.
Yeah, them’s some serious library fines. (Fun fact! I initially intended to be a librarian, myself! For the time being I’m enjoying my job and covering my expenses, but life is not over yet!)
I moved without remembering to update my library card info, once – just a few blocks away – and ended up with an overdue fine that got sent to collections! It was horrifying! The amount in question was like $80 or something ridiculous like that. I had stellar credit, never a late payment or anything, and suddenly this collection agency was sending me scary-sounding letters. I usually look, with a guilty half-smile, at library fines as “financially supporting an institution I greatly appreciate” but man did I start paying more attention to them after that.
The library system is one of my favorite parts of NYC. Between the NYPL branches (one within 2 blocks of my apartment, and one within two blocks of the building I work at!) and the Queens library system, I can get just about any book I want. Everything by CS Lewis and Peter Kreeft that I have ever read, I got through the Queens library system alone.
I’m kind of jealous, Courtnay. I wanted to get my master’s in Tennessee, at UT Knoxville, but all my childcare help and support was up here. I didn’t even know there was a school with a library program in Nashville. I ended up going to UW Madison.