We're avid readers. Saturday trip to the library has been our family's ritual for about 20 years.
I live rurally, so when the funds dwindled, I ordered books from other libraries, have them delivered at ours. We even went to neighbouring towns for the bigger selection.
Sometimes we incurred charges, albeit for being late, their system's fault etc...I never grumbled.
Then they introduced the electronic system. Fine. I'd renew online, self service etc, no worries.
But the charges/fines keep coming. The inflexibility. The hassle of remembering the due date. The whole system is absolutely diabolical. And today I had enough. I handed my library card to the librarian after incurring £1.50 charge for an item I renewed (or thought I did, turns out somebody else requested the book, the only way to renew it was to call?! The reason I missed that was because the system renewed the first two books, but not the 3rd. I'd already paid £1.50 for the books to be reserved. Not because there was a queue, but because my library doesn't stock them).
The librarian has obviously seen this before. She begged me to reconsider and continue to use the library. She argumented that we beed our libraries to work, less users mean more closures. I know. That's why I've been putting up with it for so long.
I felt like crying. Like I'm personally responsible and killing a very useful service.
I don't know. What do you think?