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Library scofflaws, your time is almost up

This time, Clearwater won't arrest people for overdue books, but a collection agency will contact them.

By AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published February 14, 2006

CLEARWATER - Arresting folks who had overdue library books became a public relations disaster five years ago, a black eye that turned the city into a national joke.

So Clearwater scrapped the idea even though the books continued to walk away.

Now the library police are coming back, but city officials say their tactics will be gentler this time.

The city is poised to enter into an agreement with Unique Management Services of Jeffersonville, Ind., to hunt down patrons with outstanding fines or uncollected books. The city loses about 16,000 books each year from of its 1-million-book collection, said library director Barbara Pickell.

The uncollected books, when coupled with unpaid fines, total about $250,000 a year in lost revenue, said City Council member Bill Jonson.

Largo, Oldsmar, Tarpon Springs and other cities in Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties already are using the collection service, which caters specifically to libraries. After a series of phone calls and letters, the company lists the unpaid fines on a violator's credit report.

No one's arrested, and there are no handcuffs involved.

"This is a kinder, gentler collection agency," Pickell told the City Council on Monday, which is expected to give its final go-ahead to the program Thursday.

The city has seen its share of grief from enforcing a 1996 ordinance that allowed the library scofflaws to be arrested - a program that has been discontinued.

Most discomforting was the 2000 arrest of a woman seven months pregnant who was simultaneously battling the flu. Charges were ultimately dropped after she agreed to pay about $120 in fines, but not before she spent 10 hours in jail.

And not before she spoke to Katie Couric on national television.

The new, friendlier system is not expected to create the same stir. Unique Management already works for more than 600 libraries in the United States and Canada.

Getting a letter from a collection agency helps get the attention of a patron with overdue materials more than a letter from the library itself, according to Tampa Bay area library administrators who have used the service. It also helps get materials back from people who have moved away and do not have to worry about losing borrowing privileges in the town where they no longer live.

"This is not to try and get back money," Pickell said. "It is to get our materials back so it can be used by other members of the community."

[Last modified February 14, 2006, 02:45:31]