AUSTIN, Texas - A Texas man who was arrested for failing to return an overdue library book this fall ignited an online flurry of snarky comments and headlines about the Lone Star State extending its tough-on-crime bravado to books.
But such cases aren’t unheard of, officials say, and many communities faced with shrinking budgets and rising costs have ordinances calling for fines or even arrest warrants when library property isn’t returned.
In Texas alone, the problem has cost libraries an estimated $18 million.
Jory Enck learned that the hard way. He was arrested for not returning a GED study guide that he checked out three years ago in the central Texas community of Copperas Cove. Enck told the Killeen Daily Herald that he wouldn’t set foot in a library again: “I think I will probably just purchase a book from Amazon.”
A Texas law took effect in September that defines the failure to return library books as theft. The law, which doesn’t trump stricter community ordinances, mandates up to a $100 fine per offense.
Other states also call for fines or even arrest warrants in such cases, including Iowa - where an overdue-book offender was jailed for a week - Vermont and Maine.
In Copperas Cove, about 70 miles northwest of Austin, a 2002 ordinance mandates a $200 fine for each library item that goes unreturned 20 days after a written notice is sent demanding its return. If the fine isn’t paid, the municipal court issues a warrant, city spokesman Kevin Keller said. Keller said he didn’t know how many people had been jailed on library-related offenses.
“I was a police officer for 12 years, and while it wasn’t a regular daily thing, we had maybe a couple of these a year,” he said, adding that he didn’t know why Enck’s arrest in October got so much attention.
In that case, police were called to the 22-year-old’s apartment on an unrelated disturbance charge, but officers arrested him after finding a warrant for the study guide. Enck was released on a $200 bond, requested time served and returned the book.
He said he couldn’t return it earlier because he checked it out before beginning a three-year prison term for robbery.
Failure to return books has cost libraries a lot of money. Nearly 150 libraries in Texas participated in a survey this year that found 966,000 items were checked out long enough to be considered lost, with the total cost exceeding $18.2 million, said Gloria Meraz, a spokesman for the Texas Library Association.
One notable library-related arrest happened in 2011, when a man from Newton, Iowa, served more than a week in jail for failing to return 11 library books and six CDs worth $770. Iowa law classifies failure to return library materials as theft, and the town has a 1993 ordinance, said Sue Padilla, director of the Newton library.
Padilla said she saw a spike in returned overdue materials after the arrest.
“We did notice that some things that had been out for quite a while did suddenly come back,” she said.
Indiana-based Unique Management Services is a collection agency that works with more than 1,600 libraries nationwide to recover overdue materials and administer fines and fees. During sluggish economic times, libraries became more anxious than ever to recover unreturned books, said Kenes Bowling, the agency’s customer development manager.
“They feel the budgetary pressure, no doubt,” Bowling said. “But what we’ve seen over the years is that, no matter what the library does, there’s still a percentage of folks who need third-party encouragement.”
That includes a woman whose excuse for unreturned books ranks as Bowling’s favorite. He said she claimed the leg on her dining room table had broken “and the stack of books under it were just right.”
Front Section, Pages 9 on 12/28/2013