Sonoma County Library going ‘fine-free’

Important news if you’re a regular borrower through Sonoma County Library: Effective July 1, SCL will no longer charge late-fees for materials that are not returned on time. (The library will continue to charge for lost, or damaged, items.)

More than 80,000 people currently owe overdue-fines to the library, according to a recent article in the Press Democrat. SCL is hoping that, by eliminating overdue fines, former library patrons will be encouraged to return without fear of hefty fees.

This move by SCL is part of a nationwide “fine-free” trend among public libraries, in recognition that fines can pose barriers — especially to low-income families — to access resources through the library.

It’s interesting to note that financial impact for the library is expected to be small; the article quotes Ray Holley, a library spokesman, stating that late and lost books account for less than 1 percent of the library’s total revenue each year. According to Holley, it costs SCL more to collect fines than what the library makes from them.

Summer reading and ‘Friends’ book sale at Sonoma County Library

I won these books (courtesy of Friends of the Santa Rosa Libraries) through posting reviews, logging books-read, and completing activities for summer reading at Sonoma County Library. And with the “Friends” book sale taking place this weekend at SCL’s Central Library, now’s an especially good time to redeem those free-book summer reading prizes. You can register for summer reading online at https://sonomalibrary.beanstack.org/.

Story-time cushions for SRCSA library

Looking forward to library story-time next year at Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts! These story-time cushions were purchased for the library using Scholastic Book Fairs dollars. Appreciation to School for the Arts Community Organization for making this acquisition possible.

‘Ban This Book’ by Alan Gratz

Amy Anne, a fourth-grader, creates a library of banned books in her locker after a classmate’s mother uses her political influence to remove books from the school library. (The school district has an official policy for dealing with challenges to books, but because this parent has so much clout, the board abandons its official policy and simply removes the books.)

I liked this book for its portrayal of students taking positive action, as well as for its advancement of the theme of choosing books for yourself. It’s OK for a child’s parents to make choices for that child about what is, or is not appropriate, but that child’s parents do not get to make that choice for every other child in the school.

One of my favorite scenes concerns Amy Anne’s wanting to keep track of books borrowed from her library. Amy, of course, does not have access to an automated library catalog. So what does she do? She asks the school librarian about how libraries tracked books before the automated catalog, and the helpful Mrs. Jones even equips Amy with her own date-stamp to imprint due-dates in the books.

SRCSA library, top circulations for 2018-2019

More than 7,000 transactions were recorded this past year in the library at Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts. Here are the books that were most often checked out during the 2018-2019 school year, with number of circulations.