In a book about his experiences encountering the United States, Bill Bryson noted that a small town post office had a tray of cookies out for the pleasure of their patrons. In England, he noted, such a thing would have been incomprehensible. British Post would have been challenged to get the mail to him on time and unscarred. Cookies were out of the question. In the United States, apparently, things were different.
This morning, I stopped by my local library to drop off a book. I noted two things. On their counter was a tray of Christmas cookies out for the pleasure of their patrons. How nice, I thought. And on the wall, in multiple places, were signs that they were increasing the fines for overdue books. How wretched, I thought.
What is it about libraries and overdue fines? Do they really work? Do people really think 'Gosh, I'd better get this book back or I'll have to pay a fine' ? Are people really so unlikely to return books that they need to do this? And how often does it happen that people say well, heck, this fine is so large, I'll just keep the book? Of course, from then on you can't use the library card to check out books, which might not be an impediment, at least until they start putting scanners on the doors, and you can't interlibrary loan books from other branches -- which, given how poor the selection is locally, is actually something of a consideration. So maybe the fine does have an effect. Maybe. Seems -- cheap, though. Unneighborly. Perhaps I'm being unrealistic.
All I know is, the cookies were nice, but this -- this is crummy.
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