Hello Reshma,
 We have been grappling with this one ourselves.
Like you we allow a library fine up to £5.00 beyond which they cannot take out new items but they can renew & continue to build up fines.
We have generally tightened up on our procedures at the counter so we expect students to pay rather than allow the debt to sit on their account . We introduced self payment on self service as most of our transactions are done through this now, this prompts customers to pay if they have fines. In the last year we have found the that the  general level of debt has fallen quite noticeably.

However, it as you say the ones who avoid coming to the library that are the problem. They are only forced to face this once they complete their course & want to graduate. Chasing these students involves  a lot of staff time & and potentially can be pretty traumatic for all involved.

This year for the first time we sent out a email to all final year students around exam time thanking them for using our services & reminding them that in order to graduate they must clear all of their library debts. We supplemented this with posters in our libraries & on plasma screens. This had a positive effect & the number of final year students we have had to chase has been lower than last year.

Once term is ended within a week students with outstanding loans receive a letter (not an email) from us listing what is outstanding & its replacement value. It tells them they must pay or they will not be able to attend their Graduation. The current letter only deals with outstanding loans, not those with just fines (we are looking to  rectify this for the December Graduation, so that we catch all debtors). We can't stop students graduating who have a debt less than £25  so only those with over £25 of library fines are emailed/telephoned by the Desk Supervisors. This also always produces a flurry of activity as students wake up to the fact that we might actually mean what we say.

This year for the first time we have invoiced students who did not respond within a week. We set this up with our Finance Dept who are also chasing other debts at this time from final year students. This also has promoted those still in denial to act. Graduation starts next week & the number of students we are blocking from either attending their ceremony or their certificate is greatly reduced from last year. We will review this once graduation is over but I'm pretty pleased with what has been achieved. However we still potentially have the trauma of dealing with those who turn up on their graduation day & haven't settled their debt. 

Like you we don't want to wait until students complete their courses to pursue debts. It would be much better to deal with all outstanding issues before the next academic session begins. We have had preliminary discussions with Finance about applying this to all customers not just final year students. What we are discussing currently is a "sweep" once a year probably in June, of all debtors. It could be just a letter from Finance warning that if they don't clear their debts by the beginning of the next session library & IT access will be denied. I'm told the mere threat of withdrawing IT access is the one students respond to most & will do anything to avoid .

Hopefully other colleagues have experience of something along these lines & can share their experiences with us. Like you I'd be interested to know what others do.

Regards
Bernadette
 



-----Original Message-----
From: A general Library and Information Science list for news and discussion. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of rnkhan
Sent: 06 July 2010 11:03
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Library fines collection policies at your institution

Dear All,

 

At Bradford University we are looking to revise how we handle library debts
and fines and associated communications with a view to improving our debt
collection policies.

 

Currently students can clock up a library fine of up to £5 without it
affecting their use of the library. Once £5 or more has been accrued then
students can no longer borrow until the fine is cleared. This generally
works fine for small amounts. It's when the fines become more substantial
that problems in settling accounts arise. At Bradford we charge up to a
maximum of £30 per book so fines can amount to several hundred pounds over a
period of time. Once this happens then many students simply avoid using the
library for the rest of their studies. It's only when they come to graduate
that we start to chase these fines as non-settlement of library fines can
affect their graduation. This final year procedure is a mammoth operation
for us and we would really welcome ideas on how other institutions handle
this.

 

At Bradford we are considering not allowing students to enrol onto the next
year of their studies until all financial obligations with the library from
the previous year have been settled. Another option is stopping their
computer access although I don't think this could actually be a viable
option as this has more serious implications as email is the university's
main method of communication.

 

So just wondering if you already use  either of the above or you have some
other policies in place?  I would also be very interested in how you
formally communicate library debts to your students. Do you use email only
or formal written letters?

 

All responses gratefully received and I will summarise all responses for the
list.

 

Many thanks in advance.

 

Reshma Khan

Customer Service Operations Manager

University of Bradford

JB Priestley Library

Bradford

BD7 1DP

01274 233367