Holy hell just for 4 DVDs?

I think you should e-mail the director or the library board or somebody and mention that those kinds of fines are a hardship for most people in this economic climate. You gave the DVDs back - no one was waiting for them, I'm sure. Since when is the library a for-profit enterprise? Fines are there to encourage people not to keep the property out too long - but as a tax payer, you have a stake in those DVDs. I think you should get all of the money back *and* the library should have another look at their policies.

Nightmare! but, take the money and console yourself :)

The common practice in our public libraries is that they don't charge you anything when you want to borrow a DVD, but if you are late returning it then you have to pay a fine. And like in your case, they always break the sets and lend them as individual items. If your situation happened to me in my public library, the late fine would amount to about 15$. And there would be absolutely no room for protest. I wouldn't be allowed to borrow or use anything from the library until all my fines were payed -- no books, no DVDs or CDs, public computers, nothing. :(

Wow! That's steep.

Take the money, sounds like you'd enjoy the craft festival so take it and go.

I didn't realize that fines are getting so steep. You should have been fined as a set, not individual DVD's. Why would someone only take home a part of a set?

I understand public libraries are having problems financially to keep running but there is a line that they have crossed that is very unfair.

Thats a lot of money for three days.:(

That's a lot of money! Did they charge you a weeks rental for every day it was late or something? They do that at our library, you are charged £3.00 (i think) and you can borrow it for a week. After that it's £3.00 every day. Thats why i never borrow DVD's from them because i'am always late. They do charge as a set though, not independantly.

I can't believe they charged you that much for only 3 days overdue. It's unfair!

I am sorry to here a public institution "robbing" a patron, masquerading as a "fine". Fines are suppose to be "gentle" reminders to return books on-time so others may also enjoy. Our local library (Northeast-USA) has a maximine dollar amount which they will fine you, (I have forgotten exact amt but it is reasonable). If a book/item is not returned you are billed the cost of the item so they may replace it, but they wait about a year just in case it shows up. We also have on-line services so we may renew our selections ourselves as long as they are not on a "hold" list for another patron.(This is particularly helpful since we don't live in town and try to plan several errands in to save on time/gas).I agree with another poster, your library director or overseers should review their policies and your letter may help them decide to revisit this issue. When our children were young we would borrow dozens of books at a time and some got misplaced. But, I found the librarians to be most accomodating and allowing us time to search for them before issuing fines. Our library understands the pupose of a library. Why would a library want to discourage the use of their services by issuing unreasonable fines? The more services that are used plus the more books borrowed makes a case for the library to ask for an increase in their budget. Good Luck.