Bibliophiles rejoice. If voters approve the library levy on the Aug. 6 ballot, the Wallingford library will be open seven days a week, including the now-closed Fridays.
And it will open at noon on Sundays, an hour earlier. While the levy takes effect Jan. 1 (which will include the Sunday changes and an extra hour Monday – Thursday), the Friday changes likely won’t take effect until mid-2020.
Last year the Seattle Public Library had over 17 million visits, lent materials to nearly 400,000 borrowers and hosted more than 11,000 free education events.
This is not a new levy, but replaces the one that expires this year. If it fails, it would erase a quarter of the library budget and reduce hours and materials. Ballots will start showing in in mailboxes this week.
One controversial part of the levy proposal if the elimination of overdue fines on books. Library research shows that overdue fines impact some low-income neighborhoods more than others, and many users have their accounts blocked because of overdue fines.
Borrowers would still have to pay a replacement fee for lost items. According to the city, “Overdue fines act as a financial barrier to Library access for many in our community. We believe communities are stronger and healthier when everyone has access to the materials they need to pursue life, career and family goals. Research shows that eliminating the practice of charging fines on overdue materials has no significant impact on return rates.”
The Library collects about $1.1 million a year in overdue fines. This has declined by $226,363 since 2012 as more patrons use digital formats, which are fine-free.
Will this library get more books? There are plenty of places they could have books– I have mentioned them to the manager and others many times– by the black non-used wall; instead of featured books which take so much space, on bookshelves in middle, above window chairs, rotated thru music cds.( c re c)
It is B.S. to say that, “Overdue fines act as a financial barrier to Library access for many in our community.” If someone can’t afford .25 cents per day late fine how about they just return the item on time? That’s a way to not have fines without actually making the library fine free and costing us all money. Oh, but that would mean having to take personal responsibility and that’s not something that certain Seattleites are capable of apparently…
So how many people who are responsible and return books on time and going to be hindered by this proposal? If there isn’t any fine, then what is to keep everyone from simply not returning the materials for months and months? On another site someone pointed out the city will then have to pass another multi million dollar levy to double the copies of books since people will just hold onto them when there is NO ACCOUNTABILITY.
This whole thing is the dumbest levy I have ever heard of, I am not interested in having my already outrageous property tax further increased to make up the shortfall the libraries will have for not collecting fines. I have already paid for two prior library levies because they made sense – this one is just ridiculous. Continue to decimate the middle class and you will see the consequences….
Also, we paid money in prior levy’s to extend library days and hours, but I think we are beyond reason, as the library is not a 7-11 and doesn’t need to be open 24/7. People can manage to use it if it’s at least open a certain amount of days and hours, we don’t need to go overboard. The only ones who need all the additional hours are the homeless who like to camp out in our libraries.
If accountability is your goal, then we actually have to make the fine progressive. To hurt a low income family, $20 is enough. To hurt a middle class, I recommend $200. For upper middle class, I recommend $2000. Only with that you can get accountability, otherwise people will just use their money to get out of accountability. What you called “accountability” really is just suppression of the poor. I forgot to return books once in awhile, but it never bothered me because the fine is never an issue for me. The fine didn’t make me more accountable at all.
And the additional hours help people that have work. For people with typical day jobs, Wallingford library is effectively closed on Wednesday and Thursday right now, since it closes at 6PM.
That’s fine, I am middle class, but your idea of the increased fine won’t affect me as I am a responsible person and return my library books when they are due.
As for the additional hours helping people who work, well that’s a silly argument as the Wallingford Library is open both Saturday and Sunday, so days and times that work for people with ‘typical day jobs’ The Wallingford Library is also open Monday and Tuesday until 8pm, so really you don’t have a good argument. Like I said, there are already enough days and hours for people to do what they need to do in terms of the library – it’s not meant to work around every single variation – that would be silly, it works fine and already has a great schedule.
Why is it about you? Policies shouldn’t be judged on how it impacts you. Policies should be judged by how it impacts the society, and the fee structure right now is suppressing the poor.
And why do you think if library is available for four days a week, it’d be sufficient? Library is a public service, and it should be designed to provide the service to people who need it in efficient ways. Its schedule surely is far from great. I guess it’s obviously good enough for you already, and you don’t really care about the need of others, and you don’t think the need of others need to be different from yours.
how are fines “suppressing” anyone? there is a foolproof way to avoiding fines – return the borrowed items on time. so hard, i know. are you implying that low income people aren’t responsible enough to do that?
Having a foolproof way to avoid fine doesn’t mean it can be guaranteed not to happen. Time is especially precious for the poor, who is much more likely to have less control on work hours and less mean of travel, therefore higher chance of not being able to return on time. Why are we trying to design a system that has the most burden on the ones that most need the service?
To refute your argument that a library is a public service and therefore should be open all days and hours, what about other government offices such as the Social Security office, etc. Those are only open during business hours on a weekday. With the current library hours they are already open many evenings and weekends.
I am all for other services to have more flexible systems and hours also. I think you are just pointing out more flaws of more systems, instead of making a case of how this is not a problem.
thats very noble sounding, but low income, middle class, and upper middle class are all equally capable of returning stuff on time…ridiculous.
And all equally capable of not returning stuff on time, which is obviously a possibility for all. Let’s say everybody has a 20% of missing the deadline, the total expected cost is very obviously favoring the richer. I don’t think it’s that hard to understand.
It’s the same issue of the super rich used to abuse the speed limit penalty system by racing their super cars on highway: they can easily afford the fine. So instead of just having fines, most traffic regulation systems adopted point system to take the privilege of driving away for too many infractions, which is the only way to hurt the rich without having progressive fine structure.
BS 25 cents is not a lot of money, even for someone who is not middle class or wealthy! Did anyone poll people and ask if the current fines were onerous? No, again just another politician creating a problem that doesn’t actually exist to try to make themselves look good. Some of us are not fooled.
it is a pretty lame reach – just because you have a low income that doesn’t mean you can’t be responsible. pretty easy to return stuff on time…
Here’s a fact sheet on the elimination of library late fees. It doesn’t seem very doom and gloom to me. Dozens of library systems (big and small) in the United States have eliminated late fees, and they appear to still be functioning.
So are you really going to try to convince people that it’s worth eliminating the $1.1 million in fines the library collects and uses to buy materials etc. in favor of saving irresponsible people the reasonable late fee of .25 cents per day? Wow, where’s the common sense?
I think the cost of covering these late fees will be about $6 a year for my wife and I, so I’m pretty convinced. From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs, or something like that.
So we should all pay so other people don’t have to pay late fees? BTW, this is not the only measure on the ballot that will increase your costs, add them all up. There are many other new levies and expiring levies that are on the ballot to renew. I would rather pay for the expiring Parks levy, than this one which isn’t necessary – the library has been working fine as is.
I don’t even use the library, so I’m paying for OTHER people to have free access to books. Additionally, I don’t have kids, so I’m also paying to educate OTHER people’s children. And I don’t own a car, so I’m also paying for OTHER people to drive on paved roads. But I’m willing to do it, because that’s the price of a civilized society.
There are a lot of things we pay for other people. This is kind of the point of having a society. I do agree that we shouldn’t do all these levies or what not. We should just raise tax overall and have a bigger general fund. With levies and referendums, we’ll constantly ignore the needs of the most needy. Since many of their needs won’t be the needs for the majority. The right way to do is to just raise tax revenue in general terms, and let the government design programs that can cover the weak and needy, as opposed to relying on the whim of general public and hoping people aren’t all selfish.
“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs, or something like that.”
That something being Karl Marx. No thanks.
My ability to ever retire is hindered by paying for everything for other people.
“This is not a new levy, but replaces the one that expires this year”
i love the library, but hate this sort of attempt to twist language. if a thing expires and is then replaced with something else, that something else is indeed “new”. ugh.
Gotta love how they always use such soothing language with these levy “renewals.” And they say it’s simply a renewal, but when they first try to sell us on these levies they say don’t worry, it’s just “temporary,” it’s not like it’ll be permanent ;-). And is it really a “renewal” when the levy is being nearly DOUBLED from the last time they asked the voters?
And I’m sorry, but this latest scheme of theirs to waive any and all accountability with people not turning in their books on time is absurd. Every kid from generations ago has understood that if you don’t return your books on time you are going to pay a nominal fee. It’s one of life’s little lessons in personal responsibility. What next? You forget to pay pay your bills on time, so let’s soak the taxpayers some more to pay it for you? Because it’s not fair to be penalized for being irresponsible?
Send a message to the city that we’re tired of coddling people and paying for their for bad personal choices and behavior. Vote NO.