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Chicago book returns surge 240% after city eliminates fines

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Re: Chicago book returns surge 240% after city eliminates fines

#21

Post by ComputerGuru »

CountSessine wrote: post #4
ComputerGuru wrote: post #3

I honestly think it is the novelty of suddenly not having fines rather than the actual not having of fines. IMHO (most) people don’t not return books when they’re a day or a week late because of fines. Ultimately, I believe it’s too early to draw any conclusions beyond observing the number of books returned for now . It will certainly be interesting to see where the steady state will wind up, though. (I’m a CPL membe…

I agree - I’d like to see their steady-state follow-up numbers 5 years from now. Even if that’s the case, I guess they can just have an amnesty every once in a while.

A concern is that when the "new normal" is "no fines" then there is no room to offer any sort of "limited amnesty," i.e. you have no more cards left to play.

Re: Chicago book returns surge 240% after city eliminates fines

#22

Post by geofft »

donw wrote: post #15
ComputerGuru wrote: post #3

I honestly think it is the novelty of suddenly not having fines rather than the actual not having of fines. IMHO (most) people don’t not return books when they’re a day or a week late because of fines. Ultimately, I believe it’s too early to draw any conclusions beyond observing the number of books returned for now . It will certainly be interesting to see where the steady state will wind up, though. (I’m a CPL membe…

Agreed that more data is required to draw any sort of conclusion from this. That said, my understanding of behavioral therapy is that you reward desired behaviors and ignore unwanted behaviors. Punishment is also on the table for flagrant violation of the rules, but it needs to be applied equally and immediately. With that in mind, how does the library system reward good actors -- those that return books on-time, tha…

I wonder if you can redefine the problem to not have a "good actor" distinction. For instance, instead of the normal term-based borrowing, say that every taxpayer gets, say, 10 books at a time, funded by the state (to promote education/culture/whatever). You can swap out those books as often as you want. You can also hold onto those books as long as you want. If they come back damaged or you lose them, they continue to count against your quota (possibly subject to a jubilee mechanism). At no point do you owe anyone anything. Also, the library is under no obligation to buy unbounded copies of any single book: they can have a hold system for popular new releases just like we do now. Only books the library can reasonably acquire more copies of (i.e., in print or public domain) are in this system; rare books maybe follow the current system or maybe aren't loanable.

People who are heavy library users aren't affected by this, they can do what they've been doing. People who want to hold onto a book for years can do that too (and the library might decide to buy more copies), but they're no longer exhibiting bad behavior and there's no reason to disincentivize them.

Re: Chicago book returns surge 240% after city eliminates fines

#23

Post by siruncledrew »

jcims wrote: post #7

They should work with the post office to accept returns. I live ten miles away from the closest library. It never makes sense to drive there solely to return a book and I work from home 95% of the time, so I’m rarely there by chance. As a result, i never go to the library. If i could chuck the book into my mailbox to return it I’d stop by more often.

It's a good idea in theory. Receive books in the mail, return books in the mail.

I imagine the main cost-factor is size/weight of the books. The post office having to deliver an encyclopedia would be more costly than delivering a small paperback.

Maybe there's a way to work around that. It would at least encourage the readership of physical books (and maybe books in general). I don't go to to the library either, and really don't read books that much, but it certainly would be interesting to have the capacity to see reading materials online and have them mailed to me. Then again, if they are currently available for free at the library today, I suppose there's only so many excuses to make for my own laziness.

Re: Chicago book returns surge 240% after city eliminates fines

#24

Post by altmind »

jcims wrote: post #7

They should work with the post office to accept returns. I live ten miles away from the closest library. It never makes sense to drive there solely to return a book and I work from home 95% of the time, so I’m rarely there by chance. As a result, i never go to the library. If i could chuck the book into my mailbox to return it I’d stop by more often.

By the way, USPS got a separate rate for books

https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-Media-Mail-Book-Rate

Re: Chicago book returns surge 240% after city eliminates fines

#25

Post by stefap2 »

jcims wrote: post #7

They should work with the post office to accept returns. I live ten miles away from the closest library. It never makes sense to drive there solely to return a book and I work from home 95% of the time, so I’m rarely there by chance. As a result, i never go to the library. If i could chuck the book into my mailbox to return it I’d stop by more often.

Looks like it is a thing in some libraries: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=book+by...

Re: Chicago book returns surge 240% after city eliminates fines

#26

Post by beatgammit »

teeray wrote: post #18
donw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed that more data is required to draw any sort of conclusion from this. That said, my understanding of behavioral therapy is that you reward desired behaviors and ignore unwanted behaviors. Punishment is also on the table for flagrant violation of the rules, but it needs to be applied equally and immediately. With that in mind, how does the library system reward good actors -- those that return books on-time, tha…

> how does the library system reward good actors One thought would be to take a page from airlines and institute the equivalent of status tiers. For example, returning books on time gets you further towards the front of the line when waiting for items on-hold and earlier access to new releases.

Or perhaps just more concurrently checked out books. Increase your maximum books for good behavior, decrease it for bad behavior (perhaps minimum of 3 books, maximum of 50 or something like that). Also, show the current no-late steak when checking out books and perhaps publicly display a list of everyone who has a perfect record for a period of time.

Also, as for the stick, perhaps temporary suspensions for consistent bad behavior would work.

Re: Chicago book returns surge 240% after city eliminates fines

#27

Post by beatgammit »

hanoz wrote: post #16
donw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed that more data is required to draw any sort of conclusion from this. That said, my understanding of behavioral therapy is that you reward desired behaviors and ignore unwanted behaviors. Punishment is also on the table for flagrant violation of the rules, but it needs to be applied equally and immediately. With that in mind, how does the library system reward good actors -- those that return books on-time, tha…

> With that in mind, how does the library system reward good actors -- those that return books on-time, that sort of thing? A reward of an increase in their simultaneous loan allowance might be warmly received perhaps, whilst not actually taken advantage of to any detrimental extent.

Yeah, people like reaching milestones, so gamify it a bit.

Re: Chicago book returns surge 240% after city eliminates fines

#28

Post by reaperducer »

I think what's being missed in the discussion on HN is the reason CPL eliminated fines. It's not about the money, nor is it about getting the books back. It's to improve access to the library system.

CPL did a study of who held the cards with suspended privileges because of late fees, and found out that the vast majority were people in poor neighborhoods, and of those the vast majority were children.

Now with the new rules it opens up book borrowing again to tens of thousands of people who need it most.

/CPL cardholder.

Re: Chicago book returns surge 240% after city eliminates fines

#29

Post by closeparen »

geofft wrote: post #22
donw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed that more data is required to draw any sort of conclusion from this. That said, my understanding of behavioral therapy is that you reward desired behaviors and ignore unwanted behaviors. Punishment is also on the table for flagrant violation of the rules, but it needs to be applied equally and immediately. With that in mind, how does the library system reward good actors -- those that return books on-time, tha…

I wonder if you can redefine the problem to not have a "good actor" distinction. For instance, instead of the normal term-based borrowing, say that every taxpayer gets, say, 10 books at a time, funded by the state (to promote education/culture/whatever). You can swap out those books as often as you want. You can also hold onto those books as long as you want. If they come back damaged or you lose them, they continue…

Reserving a book is less useful when even the happy-path wait time is unbounded.

Re: Chicago book returns surge 240% after city eliminates fines

#30

Post by reaperducer »

siruncledrew wrote: post #23
jcims wrote: post #7

They should work with the post office to accept returns. I live ten miles away from the closest library. It never makes sense to drive there solely to return a book and I work from home 95% of the time, so I’m rarely there by chance. As a result, i never go to the library. If i could chuck the book into my mailbox to return it I’d stop by more often.

It's a good idea in theory. Receive books in the mail, return books in the mail. I imagine the main cost-factor is size/weight of the books. The post office having to deliver an encyclopedia would be more costly than delivering a small paperback. Maybe there's a way to work around that. It would at least encourage the readership of physical books (and maybe books in general). I don't go to to the library either, and…

I imagine the main cost-factor is size/weight of the books.

Not really. Fourth class mail used to be called "book rate." It's slow, but it's super cheap, and was established in 1879 to encourage reading and literacy.

I think a better innovation would be for one of the SV "tech" delivery companies to team up with local libraries to deliver and retrieve books from people in their offices.

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