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After consulting with the Library Planning Committee (consisting of both faculty and student representatives), the ZSR Library will begin charging overdue fines on DVDs this January. After a two-day grace period, fines will accrue at $1 a day. If another user has recalled the DVD, overdue fines will accrue at $5 a day. The fines are intended to benefit the entire WFU community by making the DVD collection more accessible.

For several years, the Library Planning Committee has fielded complaints from both students and faculty regarding problems accessing DVDs. Many borrowers habitually returned DVDs long after the due date, as they had no incentive to bring them back on time. Since the DVD collection is very heavily used, keeping an item beyond its due date is likely to adversely impact other users. Other measures that have been tried in response to the concerns proved ineffective, so the fine structure was deemed necessary.

The library is implementing other changes to help users who need DVDs longer than three days. Borrowers will receive courtesy emails one day prior to the due date. As long as a DVD does not have a hold placed on it by another patron, the borrower can renew it for up to two additional three-day periods. As always, we will work with faculty to meet course instruction needs.

We hope the fine structure will make our DVDs more readily available to all patrons. Please contact Mary Beth Lock, Head of Access Services, at x6140 with any questions about this policy.