San Diego may eliminate library fines to avoid cutting off poor

San Diego’s top library official wants to eliminate fines to avoid cutting off library access to poor residents.
The city would be following a national trend that includes Nashville, Columbus and Salt Lake City.
Officials say fines do more harm than good and make it harder to recover unreturned items.
San Diego may join a national trend of eliminating library fines to avoid cutting the poor off from a vital service and to boost recovery of overdue items.

While fines encourage many library users to return items on time, city officials say they actually do more harm than good by discouraging some patrons, especially those with low incomes, from continuing to use the library.

The fines often escalate into frozen library accounts for which borrowing privileges are suspended, leaving some customers with no library access for many years.

More than 22 percent of San Diego library card holders have frozen accounts – 174,000 out of 762,000. That percentage rises significantly higher in some of the city’s low-income neighborhoods.

Customers with frozen accounts who can’t afford the fines they owe are also less likely to return overdue books, DVDs and other items, officials say. The city’s 36-branch system has 300,000 overdue items valued at more than $4 million.

Fines also cost the city’s library system more than the revenue they generate. The city receives an average of $763,000 per year in fines, but spends an estimated $1 million in staff time collecting fines and updating accounts.