Chicago book returns surge 240% after city eliminates fines • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by rubidium » Mon, Nov 11, 2019, 3:40 AM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #30

siruncledrew wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And steal all their data and be generally aweful vs the relative “we just pass the mail” of the USPS. No thanks.

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

#32

Post by em-bee » Mon, Nov 11, 2019, 3:41 AM UTC

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…

it doesn't have to be funded by the state. you can just "buy" a book off the library. in fact, you could buy the book in a book shop, and the library becomes a swapping center.

as long as you bring back books in good condition, and they are in the library catalogue. (the library may not want to take multiple copies of books that are unpopular)

of course paying for books up front does affect low income families and users who need many books at once.

another side effect of these models is that you can swap books with your friends.

you get 10 books, and i get a different 10 books and we swap with each other until we are through all 20 books together, and then each of us brings any 10 books back.

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

#33

Post by shard972 » Mon, Nov 11, 2019, 3:43 AM UTC

smadge wrote: post #14

tedunangst wrote: post #8

Chicago made you pay the fine when you returned the book? You can't just drop it in the return and pay the fine later when you want to check out another book?

I don’t know if this is what goes through people’s heads, but why bother to spend the time to return the book and lose access to its utility when you can just keep it.

Because you assume all humans see books for their same utility.

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

#34

Post by spullara » Mon, Nov 11, 2019, 3:43 AM UTC

Netflix vs Blockbuster

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

#35

Post by spullara » Mon, Nov 11, 2019, 3:46 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #20

chrischen wrote: post #2

Between not paying fines and not paying fines, of course people are going to choose to not pay fines.

But that's not the choice, the choice is between paying the fine or being unable to use the library. The whole idea behind fines is that 1) imposing fines motivates people to return books on time and 2) disabling future borrowing motivates people to pay the fine, thereby making the motivation from 1 actually work. I don't think it's an "of course" level of obviousness that this scheme doesn't work in practice—otherwi…

So we know how much the library was worth to them now. Instead they should offer a subscription service that is free as long as you have fewer than N books checked out.

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

#36

Post by mumblemumble » Mon, Nov 11, 2019, 3:46 AM UTC

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…

All this is fair, but, at the same time, Chicago is far from the first library system to do this. It's just the largest. And it seems quite likely that it'll work out in Chicago the same way it has elsewhere. Other libraries are seeing that the benefits last.

You're maybe minimizing what the fines can amount to. As a parent of small children, I can say from experience that a load of books from the children's library, left forgotten for a week, is around $10 in fines, which is a pretty penny for a lot of folks. And if you're a busy parent and the nearest branch isn't too easy to get to - I used to live about 1/2 hour away from the nearest branch (Sulzer) - having a week or two go by before you can reasonably make it to the library is not at all unrealistic.

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

#37

Post by SubiculumCode » Mon, Nov 11, 2019, 3:50 AM UTC

Many libraries have a defined late-fee (e.g., $.50/day, regardless of whether the book is an expensive full color monster, or a children's book. Anyone here with children will probably agree that when you check out books for your little children, you are getting not one but 10 (or more) children's books. This discourages families from checking out books for their children, because even a few days late on 10 children's books starts to add up fast!

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

#38

Post by jcims » Mon, Nov 11, 2019, 3:56 AM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #28

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…

Interesting. I noted below that the libraries could work with the post office to get books back efficiently, but based on this they should probably start with school libraries instead.

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

#39

Post by baddox » Mon, Nov 11, 2019, 4:03 AM UTC

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…

If only there was a way to “ship” some representation of a book from one location to another using very little energy and space.

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

#40

Post by baddox » Mon, Nov 11, 2019, 4:07 AM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #2

Between not paying fines and not paying fines, of course people are going to choose to not pay fines.

And for the library, the choice was between not collecting fines and not getting the books back, or not collecting fines and getting the books back. So even in a model where the library is being run as a business, this is a better outcome. But, in a crazy model where the goal of the library is to provide access to books for free, this new system seems like an even bigger improvement!