Local library users know the drill. Turn your books in late and you get fined.

But that’s not the case anymore in a growing number of Michigan libraries that are closing the book on library fines as studies indicate the practice has become obsolete at best and fiscally challenging at worst.

Some took a cue from COVID-era policies that gave patrons amnesty on turning in materials late. Others said fines also can deter those they want to use the library the most from checking out materials.

One of the latest to drop fees is the West Bloomfield Township Public Library on Walnut Lake Road, west of Orchard Lake Road in western Oakland County.

The library, which has another branch on Commerce Road, sent an email to patrons on April 1 that declared “Goodbye, Overdue Fines!” It detailed reasons why it was going fine free, including that the money brought in from fees was less than 1% of its revenue and that it actually deterred library use from lower-income households it wanted to serve.

When 17-year-old West Bloomfield High School student Dayo Adebayo first got the notification, he thought it was an April Fools’ prank but has since come around to the idea. He goes to the library most days to study and check out books.

“I feel like that’s convenient for people who like renting books for really, really insanely long times,” said Adebayo, who has paid fines a few times in the past but is generally good about returning books on time.

Still, he wonders if people might be more careless without fines.

“I also feel like people might be less responsible with them if they don’t have a punishment for not turning in their books on time,” Adebayo said.

More than half, or nearly 58%, of Michigan’s libraries now don’t charge overdue fines for print materials. That’s based on data from 391 public libraries in the state that submitted an annual report in 2023, according to the Library of Michigan, the library for the state that also supports libraries statewide. In Metro Detroit, roughly 60% are not charging fines on print materials.

Larger city libraries, such as Detroit and Dearborn, as well as those in smaller townships like Romeo and Milford, have all done away with overdue fines.

View from West Bloomfield

In West Bloomfield, the decision was ultimately about fiscal responsibility, said Victoria Edwards, a marketing specialist with the library. Less than 0.5% of the library’s annual revenue came from late fines last year, she said.

Several new factors designed to improve patron’s convenience such as the automatic renewal of e-library checkouts have also reduced fine revenue, Edwards said. Other things such as credit card processing fees have also increased the costs associated with capturing overdue fines, she said.

“At this point in time, fines are no longer a sustainable source of library revenue,” Edwards said. “We’re spending more than we’re getting back, and that’s not even considering the amount of staff time that is spent on this.”

West Bloomfield resident Rebecca Smith, 64, uses the library’s online services more than the in-person ones but said eliminating fines is a good idea, especially for families with young kids.

“I feel like the library’s a service for our community, and I don’t need to pay for it other than our taxes. … I don’t want to discourage people from coming,” said Smith, 64. “I know my grandkids take out a lot of books, and they don’t always get back to the library in time. … I just think it’s a great idea. Good incentive, good feel-good for the community.”

West Bloomfield officials noted research that suggests that overdue fines don’t teach personal responsibility.

“Instead, fines create a barrier to library use that separates people who can afford to keep library items longer from those who cannot,” the library wrote in its email to patrons on April 1.

The library also still has fees in place for lost or damaged items to prevent people from walking off with expensive materials, Edwards said.

“If an item is more than 21 days overdue, so past that due date, it is marked as lost in our system, and a replacement fee for that item is charged to the patron’s account,” Edwards said. “If patrons owe over $30 in unpaid, lost, unreturned or damaged material fees, their library card is blocked, and they’re no longer able to check out materials in our system or use other library services that require their library card.”

Some systems, like the Detroit Public Library, decided to go fine-free back in 2019. Once the COVID-19 pandemic began, even more offered fine amnesty programs to encourage people to return books when the facilities were able to reopen.

“A lot of people had books checked out longer than they were supposed to be, and we saw people returning books that were much, much older than that,” Edwards said. “This is something that libraries across the country saw. … So that’s really, I think, driving a lot of the movement here to go fine-free.”

The Troy Public Library dropped its overdue fines in 2022. But that doesn’t mean patrons can keep materials forever.

If an item does not have a hold on it, it will automatically renew up to three times. If an item reaches its due date plus 15 days, it will be marked as lost, and the patron’s borrowing privileges will be frozen until the item is replaced, or the borrower pays a replacement fee for the material plus any additional processing fees, said Library Director Emily Dumas.

“That way we can ensure that due dates and return policies still apply, which is often a concern patrons have about being fine-free,” Dumas said in an email. “Also, overdue fees still apply to a few special item types, including hotspots, Kindles, loans from other libraries, and our one-week circulating collection.”

The Warren Public Library dropped overdue fees on children’s books but still has them for adult patrons. The library is always trying to work with patrons to ensure they feel comfortable returning materials, even if they accrue fines, said Oksana Urban, the library’s director.

“If patrons have excessive fines, we do arrange a form of payment, whether it’s $1 a week or $5 a month — we work with our patrons and we do let them check out books even though they have a fine on their account,” Urban said. “In good faith, a lot of them do come in and pay their fine off, but we also do waive portions of their fines so that it’s not such a burden.”

Urban said she would support going fully fine-free in the future, but it would require support from the Warren Library Commission. Roughly a quarter of 1% of the library’s revenue comes from fines, Urban estimated.

“I myself feel everything should be free to our patrons. There should be no barriers; everyone should be included,” Urban said.

The COVID effect

The number of libraries not collecting fines in Michigan jumped from 15% to 44% during the COVID-19 pandemic, climbing to 58% by 2023, said Joe Hamlin, data coordinator for Library of Michigan.

The staff time spent collecting fines often costs more than the fines themselves, he said.

“It does affect vulnerable populations more,” Hamlin said. “It’s more of a punishment, but it’s not changing any behavior.”

COVID helped the Troy Public Library really make the decision to become fine-free “as it basically gave us a long trial period to see how it would work when we stopped charging fines,” said Dumas, the director.

“We learned that it was not negatively impacting return rates or wait times, and therefore felt comfortable making it official upon reopening,” Dumas wrote in an email. “We weighed how much staff time was being spent processing fines versus how much was being collected, and it made more sense just to eliminate fines.”

Hamlin said fines can also turn people away from the library and discourage them from returning.

“I just think it’s a natural progression to get rid of the fines, especially … I don’t think fines do what folks intended them to do: incentivize the timely return on materials,” Hamlin said. “For some libraries, they have noticed that there’s no change in when materials are coming back without fines. … If they’re coming back late, they’re coming back as late as they were when there were fines.”

Patrons sound off

While Commerce Township resident Cecilia Keith, a longtime patron of the West Bloomfield Township Library and retired second-grade teacher, has never struggled too much to return books on time, she said if she was confronted with late fines, it might push her to only use the library’s online resources.

“In this day and age of online books and, you know, people are so on the go, very proximate to libraries, I don’t really see where it’s a big deal,” Keith, 82, said. “So you might as well just get rid of them (fines).”

Edwards hopes that the West Bloomfield Township Library may even see more people returning items than when fines were in place.

“I think libraries have this reputation as very traditionally rule-heavy, almost punitive information storehouses,” Edwards said. “I think change is going fine-free disrupts that narrative.”

West Bloomfield resident Edwin Tatem uses the library a lot to work remotely and check out books. Tatem is “old school” and prefers checking out physical copies to E-books. While he’s never minded paying the occasional late fee, Tatem said going fine free will help attract more kids and young people to the library.

“I’ve always struggled sometimes with fees, even when I was kid, and not for the fact of the cost, but being late,” Tatem said. “Because sometimes I’ll read something, and oh, I didn’t finish it and then I’ll keep it, and then the next thing you know, I have a fee.”