From: "Ernest Lilley" <elilley at mindspring.com>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: "Library offenders could go to jail "
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 08:58:38 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

I've often thought that libraries should take a deposit from you when
you get your card. If you don't bring a book back, no problem...they'll
just buy another. On the other hand, I'd like email notices from them,
or automated calls to remind me.

What am I talking about? I never take out library books anymore.

Ah, the evil life of a reviewer.

Ernest

ern at e357.net / (703) 371 0226 hm/cell

-----Original Message-----
From: Elspeth Kovar [mailto:ekovar at worldnet.att.net]
Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 8:24 PM
To: WSFA members
Subject: [WSFA] Re: "Library offenders could go to jail "

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