In a national survey of Australian public library workers I asked the question: “Does your library charge fines for late or unreturned items?” This is a significant question because it is possible and perhaps likely that people experiencing homelessness and/or poverty could be avoiding using public libraries in case they get charged fines they can’t afford to pay back.

I thought this practice had largely disappeared as a way to remove a barrier libraries have placed between people and library resources in the past. It turns out that this is not the case in many of our libraries at the moment. Here are the results to the question:

What this is telling us is that of the 393 people who answered this question, 235 of them work in libraries that do not fine people for late or unreturned books, while 153 people work in libraries that do charge fines. Five people weren’t sure what their library did about this.

This made me wonder where are these libraries are that are still charging fines? This is what the data is telling us about where the libraries that are still charging fines are located:

So, the green colour indicates States/Territories where more people have said there are no fines charged in their library than those who do charge. The red indicates States/Territories where more people have said their library charges fines than those who don’t. The Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory and South Australia have more respondents saying their libraries charge fines than those who say their libraries don’t. But more respondents in Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria say their library doesn’t charge fines than those who say their libraries do charge fines. New South Wales and Western Australia were about half and half. This could mean that people experiencing homelessness and/or poverty are less likely to use their public library in the ACT, NT and SA than in the other states to avoid getting library fines.

What do you think? Should all libraries remove their fines for late or unreturned books as a way of reducing barriers to library use? Or are there good reasons for maintaining the practice of fining our library users? Are you surprised that so many of us work in libraries that are still charging fines?