In my quest to have a designated theme for every day of the week, maybe I should start a “Sappy Sunday” one if I keep finding touching articles like this one? Man, every librarian should have a story like this.
My best attempt so far was a failure – in my last job, I found out about a teen patron who'd been caught using the library phone to dial 1-900 numbers which charged back about fifty bucks to that line from the online game, Runescape. We suspended him for the summer but after handing down the suspension, I was feeling guilty about taking away the library privileges of a youngster, especially in the summer months and because he's protested so strongly that there was no way he could afford fifty bucks. So a few weeks later, I asked for and received permission from my Director to offer him a deal to have his suspension lifted if he would pay a portion of the fine, write a letter of apology to the local library board and pay off the rest by doing a few hours of volunteer work at the library.
I called his house to give him what I thought was the good news. “Oh, I paid off the fine already. I wanted to keep playing the game. But don't worry – I won't charge anything back the library anymore. Promise!” 
Comments 6