The Palo Alto High School library is trying new methods of incentivizing students to return overdue books, revealing that there is no longer sufficient funding to replace them.
According to Librarian Sima Thomas, there are currently 233 overdue books as of Jan. 15, some overdue since August 2022, and this trend of overdue books has only worsened since she became librarian.
“This year, there was a sharp increase in overdue books,” Thomas said. “Students don’t seem to realize the impact of an overdue book. A lot of them are sitting on desks or under beds. The books are there, they just aren’t making it into the backpack.”
Thomas said overdue books are costing the library thousands of dollars, making the issue both material and financial.
“Each book costs between $20 and $30, but not only is it the cost of the book, but also the materials that we use to cover and protect them,” Thomas said. “This year alone, we have lost thousands of dollars in overdue books.”
According to sophomore Rory Sands, he has never experienced consequences for returning books late and often did not realize he had overdue books.
“I’ve had a few overdue books in the past and I never had any consequences,” Sands said. “I just feel like I wasn’t really aware that I still had an overdue book, I forgot about it and no one reminded me.”
Thomas said there used to be a previous student incentive for turning in overdue books because students would owe money depending on how long a book was overdue.
“There used to be a rule where for every day a book was overdue, the student would owe 10 cents a day,” Thomas said. “That incentive seemed to work. Books came back.”
Also, according to Thomas, in the past students had to return all overdue books before receiving their yearbooks, which was effective in lowering the number of overdue books.
“It used to be that at the end of the school year when you get your yearbook, nobody could get a yearbook if they hadn’t returned textbooks and library books,” Thomas said. “That really meant that we finished out the year with almost no overdue books.”
While there are no plans to reimplement these past methods, Thomas said she has been trying a new method.
“Now I’m asking students to return their overdue book before they check out their new book, and I’ll hold onto their book choice for them,” Thomas said. “That’s actually been a little bit effective this semester. As of before break, we were at over 300 overdue books, so we have gotten a number of them back this semester.”
According to Thomas, in prior years if a student was unable to pay for their lost book due to financial hardships, the library would always cover the cost.
“When students have lost books, and they come and tell us, especially if it’s a financial hardship, we always forgive those costs,” Thomas said. “I will never make a student struggle to pay for a book that they’ve lost. I don’t feel like that would be ethical.”
Thomas said returning overdue books is a responsibility that all students are expected to uphold.
“Returning overdue books goes along with picking up your litter after lunch,” Thomas said. “They are both part of taking care of the school.”
