Cranston public libraries plan on waiving overdue fines for students and henceforth going fine free for all student and teen materials, as long as the $20,000 initiative is passed in the upcoming library budget.

Library Director Ed Garcia said that around 2,200 children’s cards are currently blocked from using the library due to overdue fines.

“We wanted to remove that barrier, especially for young kids,” Garcia said. “We saw a lot of libraries around the country had started this trend, and actually saw that materials came back faster because they didn’t have the fines issue. The use of libraries also increased, which is what we’re aiming for.”

Garcia said that of the roughly 10,000 students in Cranston schools, almost 9,000 of them now have library cards.

He said that the library embarked on an initiative in September to try to get every Cranston student a library card, and were able to issue or update 1,097 cards in the first month of the school year. As part of that initiative, they also waived $3,000 in overdue fines that had been accrued by Cranston students.

“Penalizing young people for late books makes libraries feel unwelcoming,” Garcia said. “Many don’t return to the library because of an inability to pay fines for fear of accumulating them.”

According to Garcia, 51 percent of the overdue items at the libraries are children’s materials. He said that “most of the time it’s not the kid’s fault,” but rather family’s not being able to get their kids back to return or renew their materials.  He said there have been cases in which kids returning items late then not being able to take anything else out because the fines were too high.

Because fines are part of the library’s yearly operating budget, $20,000 is needed for the proposed program. That figure, Garcia said, was based on the children’s fines collected over the last year. He said that they would adjust throughout the year by spending less if they wouldn’t have enough money to afford it.

Garcia, who presented his budget to the City Council last week, said “they seemed on board” with the proposal.

He said that there are still safeguards in place, such as not being able to check anything out until overdue items are returned, or library users being responsible for items that are lost or not-returned. The library also will have to collect fines imposed on kid’s materials from other Rhode Island libraries.

Mayor Allan Fung said this will eliminate a barrier between children and their access to books, and will be especially helpful to low-income families around the city.  

Garcia said he hopes that this initiative will get Cranston closer to equipping every student with a library card.