Libraries in Door County may stop charging fines
Libraries in Door County may stop charging fines:
https://www.co.door.wi.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_04172023-1435#page=42
Page 42 discusses the possibility of not charging fines. Although the concept is explained using concepts conservatives would probably disagree with, one could also see it as an attempt to get back to pre-covid usage levels. There are many graphs on pages 13 through 19 which show how library usage fell. It is possible that getting rid of fines would increase the use of the libraries.
Would people abuse a policy against fines? Undoubtedly some will, but it is possible that enough people would respectfully return things close enough to the due date for it to work. https://www.oif.ala.org/why-have-libraries-gone-fine-free-the-past-few-years/ includes this quote: "Burgin shows that the mean overdue rates for libraries with and without fines were 13.91% and 14.21% respectively." That is hardly any difference at all, and the post-covid reduction in circulation reduces the need for things to be returned to the shelves as quickly as they used to.
Some other quotes I found when searching:
Peter Bromberg runs the Salt Lake City library, which went fine-free a year ago. He said the system’s circulation has gone up 10 percent after trending downward for three years, and more lost materials have been returned.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-pratt-fine-free-20180518-story.html
Aiming to attract more patrons and reduce barriers to library access, a growing number of public libraries worldwide are eliminating the fines
https://www.iii.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/WP_Fine-Free-Final.pdf
My wife and I drive pretty carefully. What we need is somebody to fix library fines.
Chan Harris in the April 14, 1964 Door County Advocate https://archive.co.door.wi.us/jsp/RcWebImageViewer.jsp?doc_id=1e8fc801-90a4-4104-8e86-19a1ea0947dc/wsbd0000/20151119/00000446&pg_seq=6