I'm no lawyer (praise be) but I am sure my learned friends could argue that
authorisation to make a charge for reseving an item is not the same as making
a charge for borrowing an item from another libray. Also that the phrase "at
the discretion of the authority" does not give carte blanche for fixing any
charge but only a reasonable charge. Of course another set of shysters (sorry
lawyers) could argue the opposite case.
In any case my main concern is not with the legality of charging but the
principle that we claim to offer a free library service but in fact we charge for
a significant part of this service. It could be argued that the free service
mainly covers populist material while the charged for service covers more
demanding material. See my blog at
http://sintoblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/free-public-library.html
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