Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The Dog Ate My Library Book!


If you lived in San Francisco, you could use you mad writing skills to get out of a library fine. The city's library system recently allowed borrowers with overdue books to bring them back without paying fines - which max out at $5 per book - with the caveat that they had to tell the library why they were tardy.
  • A group of second-graders said they were too busy rescuing marine mammals.
  • One woman said she just couldn't part with a beautiful early 20th century book with good-feeling paper and plate illustrations. It looked so posh on her shelf.
  • Another blamed his sister. After they had a falling out, she "accidentally" left a copy of the movie Babe that she had checked out in his name, tucked into his stack of DVDs.

Whatever the reason, the Library saw a record 29,228 items returned - compared to 5,000 returned books the last time they waived fines in 2001.


That's $55,165 in fines that were excused.

What would your excuse be?

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