The Windsor Public Library is going to stop charging late fees.
An indefinite pause on late fees was approved Tuesday by the library's board of directors.
Late fees were first suspended by the library in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and this will extend that decision moving forward.
Ward 4 councillor Mark McKenzie, chair of the Windsor Public Library board of directors, hopes this will result in more materials being returned and more people using the service rather than avoiding it due to fines that they owe.
McKenzie says they're actually seeing people bringing back the books in a more timely manner without the late fee.
"Sometimes when you get that late fee, you're almost embarrassed to bring that book back because you have to pay a fee. You almost just keep it and never bring it back but then you also never go to the library again," he says. "So what we're saying is we're going to eliminate those late fees. Sure we understand the book may be brought back a day late or something, at least you're going to continue to use the library and we're getting that material back.
According to a report to the board, given recent budget surpluses and the fact that late fees have not been charged in some time, it is not expected that a revenue reduction caused by the elimination of late fees will result in a service reduction.
McKenzie says anything they made off late fees was more just used as icing on the cake.
"We saw over the past few years that late fees were going down already. Just between 2018 and 2020, we saw a huge decrease in late fees. It went from around $96,000 to $22,000," he says.
McKenzie says the library currently uses an e-mail system to alert users three days before a book or piece of material is due back, but he's asked about setting up text message reminders.
"Send them text messages a couple of days before, send the text message the day before or the day of," he says. "If they continue to not bring it back we can continue to send them text reminders and have staff calling them to remind them. Also we can say 'look you're not in trouble, there's no late fee here, but we really just do need it back."
The library board has also decided to waive all outstanding late fees, giving library users a clean slate moving forward.