Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 20:23:39 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: Elspeth Kovar <ekovar at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: "Library offenders could go to jail "
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 07:53 PM 11/19/04, Madeleine Yeh wrote:
>On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 18:37:37 -0500
>   Candy Madigan <candymadigan at mindspring.com> wrote:
> > I managed to lose one in July that I haven't paid for
> >yet.  I keep having
> > good intentions, but I keep not making it to the
> >library.  I wonder how
> > many hundreds of dollars the fine is now?
> >
>    Most libraries tend to stop the fine when it reaches
>cost of the book plus handling.  I lost one book, and the
>Fairfax county library told me that they would be happier
>if I got them another copy than just paying the cost.
>  They could not count on the purchasing department to buy
>them another copy.    Of course your library might be
>different.

During the move to Laurel I came across a book that I'd borrowed from my
college library while working on my senior thesis, a hardback copy of
Oedipus in Greek.  I felt badly: not only was it someone else's book but
while the library had a number of copies it's the sort of book that people
need.  So the next time I was in Annapolis, almost 20 years after I'd
borrowed it, I returned it.  I was more than a bit worried about how high
the fine might be but it turned out that the record of it disappeared,
probably around the time that the library moved.  Had I found the book
several years before I might have been in serious trouble.

Instead they got the book back, I didn't have to pay a fine, and a student
was mightily impressed by his first encounter with an alum and decided that
this was the sort of people that Johnnies are supposed to grow up to be.

(Hey, folks, it was a brief encounter.  For example, he never heard me
snarling that I was willing -- and able -- to use the Green Berets to make
sure that people got their hotel resumes to me on time.)

Elspeth