Theft and the Library

Have you heard the news about the woman who was arrested for not returning an overdue book? It's made quite the story nationally and especially among the Iowa library community. While the Le Mars library has not made any attempts to have the police recover overdue books we are not immune to our patrons walking off and never returning or paying for lost materials. I wonder if our patrons realize that a refusal to return borrowed books after being overdue for 2 months is considered by Iowa law to be theft. So we send out overdue notices; we send certified letters; we call. We visit with our overdue patrons. And we get discouraged because the value of our collection to everyone in the community goes down. Oh sure, there are always legitimate reasons why someone might not get a book back on time, but we're talking about not even making an attempt to make it right with the library. That institution you promised you were only "borrowing" the book from. It's not the library who is losing, it's you the Patron who is losing. I don't know, maybe you don't mind giving $15 dollars away every time you turn around. As in, Multiply this one lady by many such ladies in every library in the state several times a month and perhaps you have a better idea of why this particular library would be so intent on getting their materials back!