We were happy to report on the Cochrane Public Library's recent decision to abolish its card and late fees, following in the footsteps of other public libraries in the region, such as Airdrie's and Calgary's.
While $25 a year for a local library card is not very much given all the benefits that come with it, the cost was still likely a deterrent for some local families. Being able to provide users free access to the local library and its services will certainly help remove some payment barriers and hopefully bolster the number of library card-carriers in town.
There's plenty of justification for removing card fees. As library director Monique Fiedler-Sills told us in our interview last week, most libraries in Alberta no longer charge patrons for their cards. In Cochrane's case, the revenue from card fees was no longer a considerable contributor to the library's revenue.
Cochrane Public Library patrons also don't need to worry about late fees anymore, as the library decided to abolish that punitive measure as well. As Fiedler-Sills told us, it's not in a library's nature to be punitive.
“We don’t want to ding those families, just trying to instill early literacy skills in their keys which are so key for their early success," Fiedler-Sills said. “One of the biggest predictors of early success is how many books a child has in the home.”
Many American libraries started to remove late fees in 2020 and 2021, including large institutions like the New York Public Library, which followed the examples of similar libraries in Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and Los Angeles County.
Usually, when a library user forgets to bring a book or other borrowed item back on time, it's simply due to forgetfulness. And studies (including one from Syracuse University’s iSchool Public Libraries Initiative that was published in April 2020) have determined that late fees aren't even that effective in persuading users to return their borrowed books.
Many Albertans are hurting financially amid continuing inflation, and any dollars saved can be helpful. We're happy to see Cochrane's local library recognize that fact.
