Amnesty Program for Patrons with Overdue Fines

About the Program

Category: Libraries (Best in Category)

Year: 2012

County libraries are constantly looking for ways to recoup their losses, save money, and increase traffic into the library. However, many county residents never return to libraries after they begin to rack up large overdue book fines. In response, Orange County started an amnesty program to fix the overdue fines dilemma. In light of the current economic climate, OC Public Libraries sought to restore the borrowing privileges of customers currently unable to check out material due to outstanding fines and encourage them to return overdue materials to the library so they would once again be available for other library borrowers. To this end, the county instituted a one week Amnesty Program for patrons with overdue fines. During Amnesty Week, attendance increased by over 4,500 library visitors over the same week of the previous year, in addition to an increase of almost 3,000 items being checked out. This indicates that more patrons were returning to the library to borrow materials and utilize the county's various library services. In addition, 6,717 overdue items were returned to the shelves of our branch libraries during this week. At an average book cost of $25, this equates to $167,925 in returned library materials.