Chief Minister Stanhope has announced that the library service is going to let you have more stuff and for longer.
“Library users are now able to borrow an unlimited number of books, CDs and DVDs for up four weeks and renew items – not requested by another user – up to three times,” Mr Stanhope said. “Previously 30 items could be borrowed for three weeks and renewed only once.
“The new rules aim to encourage library users to borrow more items more often.”
Mr Stanhope said restrictions would apply to items in high demand.
“Popular items will be restricted to a two week load period to ensure everyone has an opportunity to borrow these titles.”
Apparently the DVD of “Wall E” and Christos Tsiolkas book, “The Slap”, are popular items at the moment.
Does anyone really need to borrow 30 books at a time? Really? Bearing in mind that serious research does not get done in the ACT’s public libraries.
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Waiting on Reserved books will now increase by 25%.
An already painful wait on books just became more painful, depending on how they interpret high demand items.
I’m excited about it- Thank you Library
Does anyone really need to borrow 30 books at a time? Really?
(w days holidays down the coast) x (y people who give you their reading requirements) x (z weeks of library closed and therefore unable to borrow new books) = “30 books? Yep, we’ll just squeeze it” It doesn’t happen every week, but it does happen
Bearing in mind that serious research does not get done in the ACT’s public libraries.
Sez who? Granted, it wasn’t PhD research, but stuff on plumbing, building and paving added up pretty quick for me. Don’t be so presumptuous.
Just because Jon keeps getting late fines………….
The Brad said :
oh no, you’ll have to wait a little longer for something you want that’s free.
cry me a river.
“cry me a river.”
haven’t heard that line in a little while. thank you
Been awhile since I went to library. Not sure where my card is, or what the opening hours actually are.
They have a head of ebooks for download on the website though!
no waiting! (except at the end of the month when my download speed becomes woeful)
http://ebooks.library.act.gov.au
Fiona, the ebooks are great
Found a way to get the mobipocket versions to my mobile (nokia 6110)and have been happily pulling ‘em down to read anywhere. A few minutes waiting here, a few minutes waiting there adds up to easy reading. No late fines – the books just fail to open after 3 weeks. Delete the old files, download new ones. Great stuff!
Pity that you’ll need a car and a car park to transport your 30 books back home.
Bearing in mind that serious research does not get done in the ACT’s public libraries.
I have it on good authority that all the serious research into the Reptoid threat is done at Dickson library.
Addison said :
Do you even understand the concept of taxation? You must often wonder what life would be like if you’d had enough oxygen at birth.
Snarky said :
Clearly you don’t have children.
That should be “JB said…”
Gungahlin Al and etc: children (even babies really – mine was around 1 year old) can get their own card, and what’s more… they don’t get fines.
But extending the time to 4 weeks is excellent. Not sure about unlimited borrowed items??! Does that mean someone can officially borrow the whole library?
Joshua said :
breathe in, breathe out…
To those with such a voracious reading appetite that 30 books every three weeks isn’t enough, may your corpulent brains find peace with these changes.
What’s amusing is that the libraries have had this policy since, I think, 1 July. Obviously someone in Stanhope’s office just noticed and thought it would be a good press release, since I guess even 1 month old news is still publicity.
I’m pretty sure that if a book has been reserved it goes on the ’2 week borrowing’ list. So the waiting lists should decrease greatly, nothing like being number 54 on the waiting list like I was for one book and having to wait 3+ weeks per borrower.
Yes, the changes came in on the 1st July, a summary of changes was posted by the self checkouts at my local library.
I think if an item has 3 or more reserve requests it becomes a high demand item.
The hold period for a title has reduced from 10 days to 7.
And sure it’s not likely someone would take out 30 titles in one trip, but now the library has gone back to unlimited loans its easy to go way over 30 in total when you need to borrow a lot of titles one one subject when you need to reasearch something.
Most books are requested by a number of people, so in effect, the borrowing time has not been increased but decreased to 2 weeks. What is strange is they now treat DVDs the same as books – it takes 2 weeks to watch a 90 minute DVD which was determined to be the same amount of time needed to read a 800 page book, which is the length of some of the books I read.
For me, reading 800 pages in 2 weeks while working late hours is not going to happen. I used to use the library but the new rules mean I have to say goodbye to reading literature.
In a twist of Stanhope’s words – “The new rules have encouraged me to borrow no items more often”
smilesr #13. Hope you’re not planning to go to Tuggers library this afternoon.
They’re currently loading all their books into my fleet of semi-trailers.
Ok Peewee, I’ll hit Woden instead!
At #16: I was no. 380 or so in the list for borrowing Tim Winton’s “Breath” just recently. I can’t remember how many months it took but not as many as you would have thought. I think people just gave up and ended up buying it instead.
It might be a clever plot by the CM to raise more money. An extra week to forget when the items have to be back and more items to attract fines.
To all the people complaining about waiting lists: do you not read other books while waiting for the one you have reserved? I look forward to my favourite author bringing out a new book as much as the next reptoid, but if I have to wait for it I just read other books till it’s available and not fret about the wait. I’m a laid back sort though.
Tuggers library is open late on Monday nights if anyone is interested in checking out the library after work on the southside. Peewee may have all the books though, but you could walk about in the warm…
Actually Feathergirl I wasn’t complaining. I didn’t mind at all; as you said, I did read other books while waiting. That’s the great thing about a library system isn’t it?! I just thought it was an amusingly high number.
I will open for business tomorrow as a private library service.
(“oops, better not give the ACT government any ideas”). In fact, they’d probably jump at any idea.
smilesr said :
There is a limit, you can only have 99 items on your card at any time. I’ve hit the limit a few times now, but the library staff still think you’re able to borrow “the entire library”.
As a warning, borrowers will need to keep careful track of when their books are due for renewal by keeping track of the dates on the bits of paper or regularly checking their borrowing record on the web.
The ACT Library Service usually sends out warning email notices when books are coming due for renewal, but you cannot rely on that. On a random basis, they don’t send out a warning email.
The books then go overdue, and start accumulating fines, without an email notification. The Library doesn’t send a notice that the books are overdue until two weeks later. In the meantime you can accumulate a reasonable fine.
You could get an impressive fine on an unlimited number of books two weeks overdue.