Libraries initiate new check-out policy to eliminate confusion
A new policy shelving the prior seven-day grace period and adding an extra week of check-out time for students and staff returning late library books was implemented Monday.
The previous policy allowed students to check out reading material in the Merrill and Science and Technology Libraries for two weeks with a week-long grace period before a daily fine of 25 cents began. To compensate for the change, the checkout time has been extended to three weeks.
Head of Patron Services Vicki Read said the grace period was often confusing for students because it included weekends but excluded holidays, causing bewilderment.
“We are just trying to make it easier as a whole for the patrons to understand. The old policy was more trouble for our patrons to figure out than it actually helped them,” Read said. “We just simplified it.”
John Elsweiler, associate director for Public Services, said the new policy will also benefit users of the USU online catalog. Students using the electronic library are now able to see the exact day a book is due back in the library without the perplexity of a grace period.
“Read’s [library] staff was getting a lot of questions and concerns, because people would put a hold on a book for the day it was due back in the library, but then it wouldn’t come back for another eight to 10 days and they wondered why it wasn’t in the library if it was overdue,” Elsweiler said.
The issue was introduced last spring to the Library Advisory Council, a board consisting of a representative from each college, ASUSU and the Graduate Student Senate.
Read said the library is not planning on pulling in any extra revenue from the change because the amount of time before charges begin is still three weeks from the checkout date.
Elsweiler said the library staff is getting the word out on campus about the change in policy by posting signs in the library, verbally reminding the borrower and advertising in The Statesman to ensure that students are aware before they begin to generate late fees.
Natalie Noble, a junior majoring in elementary education and environmental horticulture is indifferent to the recent change.
“They did extend the checkout time, so I guess it’s pretty much the same. It doesn’t make any difference to me,” Noble said.
Peter Giordano, a sophomore in computer science agreed.
“It’s exactly the same policy, it’s just a change in semantic,” he said.