Photo: Iñaki del Olmo | Unsplash
"Enclosed are books I have borrowed and kept in my house for 28-50 years! I am 75 years old now and these books have helped me through motherhood and my teaching career," said a letter accompanying a box of books dropped off at the New York Public Library. "They became family." Those books were part of a wave of returns following the library system's decision of eliminating late fines. While the goal was to return books to their branches after a year and a half of limited access, it also brought in others that were so old they were no longer in the library's systems. When Tony Marx joined the New York Public Library as president in 2011, he aimed to eliminate fines for good. But it wasn't until the pandemic, when fines were temporarily suspended, that he saw the opportunity for a permanent change. "We are not in the fine-collection business. We're in the encouraging-to-read-and-learn business, and we were getting in our own way."
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