Posted on 05/08/2016 5:27:11 AM PDT by xp38
TECUMSEH, Mich. -- A Michigan couple who faced jail after they borrowed a novel and a Dr. Seuss book from a local library and held onto them long past their return dates will remain free.
Cathy and Melvin Duren of Tecumseh were charged with failure to return rental property and a judge told them in April that they faced up to 93 days and a $500 fine.
(Excerpt) Read more at huffingtonpost.ca ...
Officials said that the program putting missing library books under the Economic Crime Unit came because Tecumseh District Library lost thousands of dollars due to disappeared titles.
Lewanee County prosecutor Burke Castleberry said that the case is “not about a library book. It’s a program to recover taxpayer money.”
The Tecumseh District Library reported that it loses about $10,000 a year because of unreturned books.
Castleberry added that including items that have disappeared from facilities’ Dewey Decimal systems under the ECU program had been successful in getting thousands in fines paid.
Both Catherine and Melvin Duren pleaded not guilty at an arraignment hearing on Thursday, and are currently free after posting $100 bonds.
Sic this librarian on Hillary
It's true that most librarians are liberal and the American Library Association is dominated by liberals and leftists. However, I have about 15 library cards and I can find just about any book I want in a public library.
If I see a title that interests me, I'll look it up on the Worldcat database and then go to the library which has it. For older materials, I'll look in catalog of the Los Angeles Public Library, which doesn't weed its older materials as aggressively as other libraries, but which does not have all of its collection on Worldcat.
“Oh, the Places You’ll Go” when you don’t return a couple of books!
I’ve been a fine-collecting librarian for my children’s elementary school. I was told to recommend that people buy a used copy in good condition on Amazon and turn that in, if they couldn’t find the original. There’s no reason to get all nasty about it.
Nuts.
Libraries carry all sorts of books. The classics of philosophy, literature, history, science. If you can’t find a particular book or author, the librarians will order it for you through their inter-library loan service.
It’s what they do.
Every library I know of sponsors a “Banned Books Week” as a warning against political correctness and totalitarianism. The Bible is invariably featured front and center, along with Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Hucleberry Finn, etc.
Too many people now get their “educations” from whatever is “trending” on the internet. The internet is only a half notch away from television indoctrination. Sure, there is good information out there to be found, but without any basis or reference point, how would a person know to look up, say, John Locke or the Federalist Papers, or the Higgs boson?
Wandering through the shelves full of unfamiliar names and ideas in a library, though, incites a person’s curiosity. You can’t help wondering, “What’s this about?” as you pick up the book and give it a skim.
Advising people to avoid libraries? Shame on you.
I strongly suspect that you are right. We need “the rest of the story.”
Classics: http://www.gutenberg.org/
What cheeses me off on some of these stories is what I see as selective enforcement.
Granted, these people were at fault, but twice I have been to my small town Nevada library and seen some Mexican child walk in with a waist-to-chin stack of DVD that were overdue with the excuse “we have no mon-eee” - and the librarian rolls over. Note, the parents sit in the car and send the kid in.
I asked the librarian how they could take out so many DVDs (our limit is seven) and she said “multiple cards”. The Free Pass excuse? “Well, they are poor people” (the parent’s car was a late-model Toyota).
The library could at least then suspend the cards so no new borrowing. That forces the perps to go through the hassle of applying for new cards with fake ids and addresses.
Good idea. Will suggest that the next time.
My fancy, new local library looks nice on the outside but upon closer inspection is staffed and occupied by ghetto people and homeless bums who surf p0rn on the computers.
Your tax dollars paid for that.
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