Happy New Years To Me

The last of my family and guests made their exit this morning, and I ushered in my New Year by paying $87.95 to the San Diego County Library.

My "foolproof" method of borrowing and returning library books has failed me. I'm trying to think of it as a "Christmas Tax". A penalty for insanity.

But a new year calls for a new system. Someone have pity on me and tell me how to organize my book life so I don't end up forking over such an exhorbitant sum again.


(oh and this is definitely Esther writing... this would never happen to Bethany)
11 sprinkles of fairy dust:

Our library had a self check out and I always forgot to take cash in so if I had late fees I would use the self check out. It still notifies you but it's not as scary as a librarian looking over her glasses at you saying you have late fees


The Los Angeles library system will send you a notification email a day or two before your books are due. It's a life saver. I've never been late thanks to that little bit of genius!


We get notifications, but I still have late fines all the time. :( What happened to your fine forgiveness day though? Did they stop that?


We do have free fine friday, which is why my fee was $87 instead of $210. But I couldn't find three books and had to pay for them at over $25 per book. :-(


OUCH. That has happened to me, except one at a time.


Oh, yikes! Our library only charges fees up to $1. I owed 30 cents yesterday. If they didn't have a limit, I'm sure I would run up some pretty high fines though. :/


dang!! Our library caps the fine at $5. Of course, I guess you would have to pay for any books you can't fine though.


Owie! Our library fines 10 cents a book a day, so it would take a while to rack up $210 worth of fines. I also get e-mails about three days before an item is due. I don't delete the e-mails until I've returned the book or DVD or whatever. If I didn't have that, I think I'd write something like "Books due" on my calendar on the dates I had things due.


Maybe only take out new books once you've returned or renewed the ones that are due. Count how many you have out and keep that number somewhere where you will see it. (It's hard to keep track of kid books!) Can you put due dates in your cell phone and get some kind of reminder alarm 3, 2, and 1 day before they are due?


libraryelf.com
$12/year
:)


I once lost a book in the middle of moving between suburbs in Austin. Good for me that I could go to the new library, bad for me my conscience knew that I had a $40 tab on my old library account. A year later (when moving again) I found the book, took it back to the first library and they waived the fee since I returned the book.