Fine Free

For years, Baldwin Library staff members have sought to remove barriers to library services, with the end goal of eliminating late fines in order to make the Library more accessible to everyone.

Various steps were taken throughout the years, including increasing the renewal limits on items, increasing the loan period on children’s materials, increasing the fine limit for checkouts, and removing fine limits for computer access.

In 2018, library staff members across the county did extensive research into late fines, including reading articles about other library systems experiences with fine free services. Libraries across the country are eliminating late fines, with no reported negative outcomes. Based on this comprehensive research, it was determined that eliminating fines was a feasible option that would improve library access to communities.

In 2019, Baldwin Library joined a group of 11 other Allegheny County libraries, to further explore this service and develop a plan of implementation for a 4-month pilot program. After months of planning,

The Board of Trustees approved the Library’s participation in the pilot program in July 2019, made effective beginning September 1, 2019.

No. Fines generate approximately 1% of our annual budget, and our statistics show that our fine income has decreased each year, especially with the increase in eBook usage.  eBooks do not have overdue fines and we have one of the largest circulation of eBooks in the County.  We have taken the all of this into consideration and feel confident that it will not affect our programs or services.  We have already identified other ways of generating income to help supplement our operating budget, through grants and fundraising.

Yes, our expectation is that the majority of items checked out will still be returned within a few days of the due date.  Other libraries that have made this change have not seen a significant change in the rate of items that are overdue and see around 95% of items returned within one week of the due date. Most library patrons are responsible users and will continue to return items on time.

We have also increased the number of reminder notices we send to patrons and those items that are not returned will be billed. We will continue to monitor this policy change and will make improvements to our policies and procedures as necessary.