Well, the first order of business, not the original question, is to pay for the lost items so the library isn't blocked from ILL. Same would be true for TexShare losses. That is the easier thing to do.
We go through Municipal Court and file a warrant. Due to the costs to us (legal fees and costs of staff (library and court)) we don't do this until we hit $125 in lost materials (excluding fines). Otherwise, we chalk it up to the cost of doing business. All the warrant does though is that if someone is stopped and a check run, the warrant pops up. We have about 2 customers a month who get caught in warrant checks. They end up paying pretty hefty fees. To minimize such loss, we do ILL and TexShare for those who have had a card with us for at least 30 days. This minimizes the "impulse buy." Won't eliminate it completely, though. If this person is outside of your city limits, you need to talk to your attorney on the process that would hold up in Municipal or County Court. Bottom line, though, is to balance your costs for doing all of this vs. the loss. For us, getting legal involved is $150 an hour. Staff labor to file with Municipal Court, plus their labor costs, and the stiff fees (over ½ going to the state), makes this process costly to the library and the patron. Some libraries use collection agencies. I'm not sure that most of our popular lit is worth the bad press of collection agencies. If we were academic libraries with high dollar or rare items, it might be a different story. Dale Dale Ricklefs, Library Director Round Rock Public Library 216 E. Main Street, Round Rock, Texas 78664 512-218-7010; 218-7061 (fax); 669-1753 (cell); [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------------------------------------------- Please note that our spam blocker blocks many emails, especially yahoo, gmail, and similar sites. You may get a "mailbox full" message. This means you have been blocked. Please call at one of the numbers above if you are having problems getting through. Thank you! From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Laurie Mahaffey Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 9:43 AM To: 'ctls-l' Subject: [ctls-l] FW: Library materials recovery How does your library handle materials recovery from patrons? If you can help out Marjorie, please respond. Thanks. Laurie ________________________________ From: budalibrary [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Library materials recovery I put the following situation to our Interim City Manager. She has asked me to get ideas about how other libraries handle this. Our new police force serves just City of Buda, even though they are technically part of the sheriff's department. " We have loaned ILL borrowed books (borrowed from another library) to a library user, who no longer answers the phone. She won't take our calls. User lives in Rolling Hills subdivision east of Buda, off FM 2001. Do we have any recourse to recover those items? Is there someone we can send to the home to recover the materials? We get blocked from using the Interlibrary Loan system. They have 2 titles: - Soul Obsession - we have been billed $ 18.99 for this book - One holy fire" Marjorie Martinez Buda Public Library P.O. Box 608 Buda, TX 78610 www.budalibrary.org
