Library items worth R2.7m returned

A FINE-free week at City libraries saw the return of more than 13 400 overdue items, including books, study guides and DVDs.

According to the City of Cape Town, items returned were valued at R2.7 million and fines amounting to R157 000 were written off.

Mayco member for safety and security; and social services JP Smith said: “When we started this year, our librarians were determined to leave no page unturned in an attempt to ensure that patrons are able to return overdue items.

“This year patrons had two opportunities to return their blacklisted and overdue items as there was a fine-free week in each half of the year.”

The blacklisted items were those that were overdue for longer than three months.

Patrons had two opportunities to return their blacklisted and overdue items JP SMITH Mayco member for safety and security

The first fine-free week coincided with South African Library Week in March and 6 067 items with a replacement value of about R1.2m were returned. More than 2 319 of those items were blacklisted.

Last month, another opportunity came and 7 365 items with a replacement value of just under R1.5m were returned; 972 were blacklisted items.

Normally patrons are sent an automated SMS via the library management system three days before items are due. Once material becomes overdue, librarians will call patrons in an effort to have the material returned.

“This is very time consuming and impacts on service delivery to other library patrons. Every single item costs money and deprives another patron of the joy of using it.

Libraries try to keep their losses to a minimum, but if each of our more than 300 000 patrons decides not to return one item, our library collections will become depleted, robbing communities of the benefit of using the library material provided.