According to the information provided by the Provincial Public Library in Krakow, PLN 209 was charged due to the fact that the reader kept the book for 500 days. The untimely user of the library paid the bill, but the photo of the “receipt of horror” posted on the “Baba od Polski” profile made the director of the facility decide to explain exactly why the fee was so much.
“Receipt of horror” from the Krakow library as a warning for the forgetful
Jerzy Woźniakiewicz, in a separate entry on his Facebook profile, appealed for everyone to think carefully about what exactly the fees for keeping books result from. He explained that in the library at Rajska Street in Krakow, books can be borrowed for a month, and after this period, the deadline can be easily extended three more times.
The rules laid down in the regulations of the institution guarantee the user free access to the book for four months. “Is that long enough to read it?” asks Woźniakiewicz rhetorically.
He then presented an estimate and, using this example, pointed out that keeping books has quite high “social costs”. If the book is returned after a month from borrowing, it can be used by up to 12 people a year. If each reader extended the statutory reading time to the maximum, this number drops to only three people. And given that many titles are only available in single copies, this blocks access to other readers.
It is also worth remembering that in smaller urban or rural centers, the public library is often the only reading room that residents can use. If the book is held for another year after the deadline, the next 12 people will not be able to read it for free.
In principle, therefore, if the title of interest to the reader cannot be borrowed, it means that the book will have to be purchased. Woźniakiewicz emphasizes:
If they didn’t find the book on the shelf, they had to buy it at the bookstore – each of them had their own copy. The average price of a book is around PLN 30. Therefore, due to the unregulated behavior of one of the readers of the library, books for PLN 30 had to be purchased by three to over 12 people.
This means that they spent from PLN 90 to even over PLN 360 on them. You will ask: how much did the person who kept this book for a year pay? Only 35 gr for each day of holding. After a year of detention, her payment to the library amounted to PLN 127.75.
“Do you still think it’s a high fee for overdue books?” she asks. He also indicates that such a fee is therefore not a penalty, but rather a compensation that compensates for the costs incurred by the library and the local community that maintains it, resulting from someone’s negligence.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
