LPL recently, and without much fanfare, switched from sending out overdue notices a week (!) after a book came due to sending a notice two days in advance of your books coming due. It's a small change, very easy to do with ILS software these days apparently, but one that shows that even in a library that seems as corporate-minded as pretty much any I've visited (this includes many libraries in Alberta), sometimes serving your public wins out over the bottom line. (Of course, I was at the LPL board meeting where they discussed this change and someone mentioned that there are studies which show that revenue from fines don't drop signficantly even with advance warnings. So maybe this wasn't a completely magnanimous gesture. But as someone who's racked up my share of fines over the year, not to mention someone who thinks you should always put the patron first, I appreciate the change.)
Comments 2
Well, I've always maintained that greedy corporate-types aren't evil, they just have misguided priorities. All else being equal, they do the right thing as much as the rest of us. It is annoying, though, having to prove that all else is equal every time you want to do the right thing.
Cheers
That's a good way to put it. It's too bad our society has developed such a complete and utter focus on the financial bottom line to the exclusion of all else (including things that would improve the bottom line in the long term but hurt the quarterly or annual profits so aren't done.) Are you familiar with the theory of triple-bottom line economics which tries to take into account social and environmental costs as well as financial implications? Maybe that'll become a more popular way of looking at things someday? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_bottom_line