I will hear your confessions. I will listen to your excuses. I will tolerate your begging. I will smile at your negotiation tactics. But in the end, I do not have the power and authority invested in me to absolve of your library fines. I am a mere reference librarian; you must seek absolution from the circulation department.
As a front-line librarian, I spend a portion of my time at the reference desk reassuring people that it is not a moral failing to have an overdue book. A library fine is nothing like a speeding ticket fine; there was no crime committed. Sometimes you just need that extra five days past your due date to finish The Elegance of the Hedgehog; sometimes a book sits on your nightstand untouched until you exhausted all renewals and that 10 cent a day fine eats away at your cheapskate soul until you finally read the book in two days; sometimes your kids throw the Caillou DVD case behind the couch and put the DVD in an Arrested Development DVD case during a quick clean-up of the entertainment center, resulting in $4.60 in fines.
Although you may think you are letting your library and community down when you are delinquent, in actuality, you are helping your library. Fines are substantial revenue generators for non-profit libraries, even at 10 cents a day for books and 25 cents a day for DVDs, which is the standard fee at many libraries across the country. It is time to stop thinking of your library fines as a punishment and start thinking about your overdue charges as a generous donation or an extended use fee (meaning you actively choose to keep the item and pay a small charge for the extra time.) Every time your kid stuffs the Diary of a Wimpy Kid under her bed for weeks, you are helping your library.
So even though, many patrons pride themselves in never having a library fine, I feel pretty confident (although it has yet to be confirmed) that there is not a special reading room in Heaven for patrons with perfect reading records, so be daring and watch those episodes of Californication for an extra day or two. Your library record is confidential, so no one will ever know, but the Ultimate Librarian.
