Another fine mess

The evil day has come at last - I am introducing fines on overdue items. Why? Because there are a small number of people who seem to think that they can keep books for as long as they want. The intention is that fines are deterrent for those people rather than a punishment for people with genuine difficulties in returning items or a method of income generation. At the risk of being controversial fines are like speed cameras - stick to the rules and you'll never have to pay a penny.

I've recently read a comment about public libraries that says people should be able to borrow as many items as they like for as long as they like. I can see the point - it's annoying when I borrow something that has clearly come from the stacks at Harlow and not been out since 1987 to have to keep renewing it every 3 weeks. On the other hand when I worked in public libraries the nurseries and schools had books on semi-permanent loan and when they came back they were usually in such a state that they had to be thrown away. At least they had been read and used, and arguably the county council was just in the business of supplying free books to schools. A good thing, surely.

However, what we have here is a very small collection and a very small budget. If someone took out our entire collection on crisis management, COPD, reflective practice or Parkinson's and kept it for six months I'd then have to borrow book form other libraries (which does actually costs us) for other people.

The point of the library is that it is a shared resource. Sometimes people will say "oh - but no one else in my department will need these, " or even "oh - I'll stick these in the department and people can share them". Your department, discipline, profession may well not be the only people who will want to read that book. So while you gaily hog it because no other physio/F2 doctor/radiologist will want it various other managers/student nurses/consultants are seething because they see nothing on our shelves on that subject. Anything you borrow and leave in the department that is lost, damage, stolen or strays is your responsibility - you are the person who gets the bill for replacing the item. If your department needs bench books then the department should buy them - the library does not supply free bench books to departments.

If you really need a book for months on end then go and buy a copy of your own that you can dog ear, scribble on, highlight, underline, leave about the department, lend to friends, feed to your dog or abandon on a bus. Library staff are always happy to supply details of books, prices and places to buy them.

To make life a little easier we hope to soon have a big blue box for returning items that will be available for putting books in when the library - and the Postgrad centre - are closed. We do always send reminders on overdue items. If you move then please let us know so that we can make sure you receive your overdue notice. You can always phone or email to renew books. We prefer that you phone as then we can let you know immediately if for any reason it’s not possible to renew a book (normally because someone else is waiting to borrow it.)
Bottom line? Fines will be due on anything that is taken out from the 2nd of July 2007 onwards and returned late. Fines will be 10 per book per day (excluding weekends and Bank Holidays). ALL members of staff with overdue books will have to pay fines. You have been warned!!!

Copier chaos

Good news! Yesterday (26th March) we took delivery of a brand new colour copier. The plan is that it will be networked to the PCs in the library and will also work as a printer. The prints will be excellent quality (it's a digital copier) and it will be cheaper for us to run than our current laser printer.

The bad news is that the network point to allow us to do this hasn't yet been installed, and nor has the system that allows us to charge you to use the copier. Please bear with us while we wait for the new equipment.

Why do we charge? Well, library budgets are on a downward slide. Charging you for printing and copying covers the cost of the new machine. We hope you'll feel it's worth the basic 5p per side of black and white.

Print, copy, pay

For some time we've been running a two tier system of charges. All copying has to be paid for. Some printing (search results or papers) is free the rest (CVs, job applications, essays) incurs charges. We've decided to change that.

The current system causes some unfairness - if the journal is in the library it costs to copy it - if it's online it's free to print. Some unfairness will continue - there is no mechanism to charge printing to departments as there is with copying. We hope eventually to have a combined copier/printer with one charging system to iron these anomalies out.

The other reason for charging for printing is to encourage you to use the copier which is cheaper to run. And the final reason is that, sadly, some people have been attempting to buck the system to find ways of avoiding paying what they owe.

So as of Monday 5th February all black and white printing and all copying will be charged at 5p per side. It's not perfect, but hopefully it's a little fairer than the current system.