Lamont Stops Privileges for Late Returns

Lamont Library will suspend the overnight borrowing privileges of students who have been repeatedly fined for not returning the library's reserve books on time, Philip J. McNiff, Assistant College Librarian, announced last night.

McNiff's staff plants to spend the next few weeks analyzing the number of times each student has been fined. "When we complete our survey we will warn some students and others will be denied borrowing privileges for a term," stated McNiff. "We have already taken this last step against a small number of people," be added.

Maximum Fine Changed

The library's now system of reserve took fines, however, has reduced the amount of overdue books from 12 to five percent of all these borrowed. The new custom no longer recognizes $2 as the maximum fine.

Now a person must pay $2 for the first may be fails to return a reserve book and $1 for every day after that. If he loses the book he must buy a new one to replace it, and also pay whatever fine has accumulated. Formerly, Lamont charged a maximum fine of $2. The new system, however, does not penalize students as heavily for a few minutes' lateness.

Not Without Urging

"We feel our new plan of charging 25 cents for each half hour of lateness is after to the students, than charging the 50 cents an hour. We'd like to eliminate all fines, but many people won't bring books in on time without some urging," McNill said.

Last year Lamont received over $6,000 in fines. "This is approximately the same amount of money we received the previous year," McNill said. The library earned the money to buy duplicate copies of reserve books.