In the bad books: Libraries hand out more than £200,000 in fines

Books due back as long ago as 1994 have still to be returned

Libraries in Tayside and Fife have handed out more than £200,000 of fines in two years and are still awaiting the return of books borrowed nearly a quarter of a century ago, it has emerged.

Keen readers have held on to titles as diverse as Low Cost PC Networking, Vivaldi: Voice of the Baroque and Asterix and The Secret Weapon since as far back as 1994.

In Dundee, films have proved more popular than books with Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas and Disney’s Christmas Favourites DVDs overdue since 2008.

Altogether, libraries in Dundee, Angus, Fife and Perth and Kinross have handed out fines totalling £238,876.57 between 2014 and 2016.

A Leisure and Culture Dundee spokesperson said: “We’ve heard the magic of Disney is timeless but in these instances that magic is actually a fair bit overdue!”

“Seriously though, we know that the prospect of a large fine often deters people from coming back and we want as many people as possible to use our services. To allow customers to continue to borrow items, fines can be paid in instalments and readers can continue to use their library cards providing the amount they owe is under our threshold of £20.

“It’s also much easier these days for customers to return their items on time as they can manage their accounts online and are sent email reminders to let them know when loans are due to be returned.”

Libraries in Angus no longer issues fines for the late return of library books.

During a month-long fines amnesty in February 2015, 3,000 items were returned which were worth more than £20,000.

A book borrowed in 1944, Undeclared War by Elizabeth Wiskemann, was returned to Brechin Library. It had a long life in Edinburgh before being returned to its rightful home.

Hazel Cook, libraries facilities coordinator, said: “ANGUSalive felt that fines are very punitive and did not encourage people to read and take out books as people who accumulated large fines tended not to pay them and did not return the items.

Roger Hamilton, Joyce Carol Oates and June Drummond... Their books are so good Tayside residents have still to return them.

“The success of our fines amnesty resulted in us not only receiving some humorous and historic returns but enabled us to take steps to completely remove fines.

“We now send people a wee reminder text a few days before their items are due to be returned, which acts as a prompt to either renew or return their book. Removing fines has given our customers fair access to borrow their favourite book and encourages library use.”