Our tardy books bind

€360,000 bill for Dublin libraries... yet all fines will be waived under plan by Government

THE Government has already announced plans to eliminate library fines – but that could lead to a loss of hundreds of thousands of euro gained from tardy bookworms.

New figures show that in Dublin’s main libraries alone, some €360,000 in book fines were levied last year.

And while all of that bill total has not been paid, and the fact that almost 30,000 books are unaccounted for in South Dublin County Council’s libraries, plans are afoot to get rid of fines to encourage more people to join their local library.

A Freedom of Information request has illustrated the extent of the late returns problem in our capital’s libraries and given an estimate of how many culprits still haven’t been brought to book.

The enquiry also shows a big difference in the most popular books – from harrowing historical fiction in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown to Bart Simpson in south Dublin.

Dublin City Council had the biggest problem with tardy borrowers, Strategy: Mail’s report on plan and just over €141,000 mounted up on late fines during the course of last year.

Against that, €98,613 was collected by the city council.

In the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area, collection rates for books returned too late were much higher with nearly 95% of the fines total paid back in 2017. During the year, the local authority levied over €79,000 on borrowers but clawed back just over €75,000.

In South Dublin County Council, the fine tally for the year was just over €86,000, compared to the €55,633 that was collected.

Fingal County Council had the lowest rate of fines of the four local authorities in the capital, with €54,179 levied and €48,537 collected in 2017.

However, library fines may become a thing of the past under plans currently being considered by the Government. Under a new strategy, late fines may be abolished to encourage increased membership at libraries.

Only two of the four councils were able to give an estimate on how many books had been stolen, gone missing or were never returned. In South Dublin County Council, just over 29,000 books had gone astray after an audit of all the various branch libraries. Dublin City Council said it had 15,880 items classified as ‘not yet returned’, which was just 0.75% of the more than two million items issued during the year.

It said: ‘Items counted in the “not returned” column are not necessarily “missing” – some may well be missing but as of now they have an item status of “overdue”.’

Earlier this month, a strategy for public libraries was discussed by Cabinet which included the scrapping of fines for the late returns.

The typical charge for books that are overdue is five cent per day.

The plan will set the policies for public libraries up to 2022.

New measures will likely include user-friendly opening hours, increased digital services and more modern buildings.

Meanwhile, the four councils also gave details of what were the most borrowed books of last year, with children’s titles proving particularly popular. In Fingal, nine of the ten most popular items were written by just two children’s authors – David Walliams and Diary Of A Wimpy Kid writer Jeff Kinney. The figures covered July to December.

For Dublin City Council, the

Big Bad Book Of Bart Simpson is No.1

results were a little more mixed – with Echoland by Joe Joyce the top title, mainly because it was chosen for the One City One Book initiative. The top choice in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown was Eithne Massey’s Where The Stones Sing, a novel about the Black Death in 14th-century Dublin.

South Dublin County Council said all of their top ten for 2017 was made up of ‘junior titles’ with the Big Bad Book Of Bart Simpson at the No.1 spot.