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A total of 188 items are missing from stock at Wokingham's 10 libraries
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Borough libraries are owed £55,000

July 05, 2011

Libraries in Wokingham are owed more than £55,000 in outstanding libraries fines.

A total of £55,436 was owed to the 10 libraries within the Wokingham borough as of Friday, June 17, and 188 items were missing from library stock.

But Richard Alexander, libraries and information manager, said the money was not a hole in the budget but rather payment which would be reclaimed.

He said: “To be honest it’s not really missing as such, it is in arrears.

“If people do not have money to pay they will pay that next time and broadly speaking most of them do.

“Generally it’s just things being paid a few weeks in arrears which looks like a big figure.”

The total money owed includes items which have been renewed online or by phone when overdue meaning the money may be collected on the next visit to the library.

Earlier this year Wokingham Borough Council approved plans to tender for a private company to run the borough’s libraries in a bid to save £170,000 a year.

Mr Alexander said the money owed in arrears would be taken over by the new management company along with books which were already out on loan.

He said: “Just like we would not expect everyone to return the book they have we accept that the service has to keep running on a day to day basis.

“I know Surrey recently were in the papers for having £100,000 outstanding in over due charges. Our position is fairly standard for a library service.

“I think the real issue is where you have got tens of thousands that is not going to be recovered through the day to day running which is not the case for us.”

Mr Alexander said the vast majority of fines would be two or three months old but he said action was taken where fines were extending into lengthy periods.

He said: “If someone owes £10 but they do not make any effort to pay we ask if they might like to consider paying it. If people continue to owe us money we are not going to let them build up two sets of charges.

“But if someone owes huge sums of money and have difficulties we may consider letting them pay in instalments.

“But we would expect to see their couple of quid before they take a book out.”

The libraries also had 188 items recorded as missing from their stock but Mr Alexander said it was a small proportion of the total library stock which is made up of more than 200,000 items.

He said: “A service like Love Film has a two per cent loss a year. We have got 188 books out of well over 200,000.

“Some of those could be that someone has taken them off the shelf and filed them in the wrong place so we have recorded it as missing but it is later found.”

Mr Alexander said some of the missing items could be things which have been stolen but he said there was little point as it was free to check them out as a library member.

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Far Far Away

My comment was based on this article in the Daily Express: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/253640/As-US-firm-seeks-to-run-beloved-institutions-are-we-at-risk-of-barbarism-

I'll quote the specific passage: "LSSI has spoken to “dozens of local authorities” over the past three years and held meetings with five councils last week, with Croydon becoming the latest borough to consider a deal. LSSI’s first contract is expected to start next May in Wokingham."

This sounds fairly certain of itself to me- I'd suggest that it probably comes from a leak. Since the Council are desperately trying to keep this under wraps and out of the media, I think it's more likely that the leak itself comes from LSSI. At any rate, it's all very suspicious, don't you think?

And I'm not trying to score points, I'm just concerned about the issue as (like yourself) a keen book reader and library user.

Matthew S. Dent, Wargrave
06/07/2011 at 20:57

Far Far away likes to read books on his travels, occasionally he is "naughty" and allows his book to become a little overdue, he takes his book back, pays his small fine and all is good, he thinks in the main this is what is being recorded, he also wishes to continue reading his books and has been following the library debate with interest, he notices that Oxfordshire are thinking (maybe) of closing 20 of their 43 libraries, he hasn't read any information that leads him to believe that Wokingham are planning to close any ! (in fact library 1 has opened), he hasn't read or seen any concrete information on this august site that library's are going to be sold to LSSI, he read on this very web site that Wokingham was seeking partners. He wonders if Mr Dent is trying to score points.