Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog’s Day in Gobbler’s Knob, photo by Anthony Quintano, licensed under CC BY 2.0

This semester you may notice that you again accrue fines if you keep library items past their return time.  The librarians want to assure that everybody has access to our resources, and charging for items that are overdue will help assure that items, including study aids and reserve materials, are available when people come to borrow them.  A systems upgrade turned off the fines and we just got the issue resolved.

Since you may have forgotten about fines while they were turned off, we ask that for now, you please be sure to turn in any overdue items.  We are providing an amnesty through Groundhog’s Day.  You may see fines on your account (if you return an item late), but we will waive them for any items returned by February 2.

But wait, there’s more!  If Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow on Groundhog’s Day, we will extend the amnesty period by 6 more days to end on February 8.  If the prediction is six more weeks of winter, we will give you all six more days of amnesty for returning your overdue items.  For items returned after the end of the amnesty period, fines will accrue as our Circulation Policy indicates.

If you have questions about the policy, you may speak with Meg Butler, Associate Director for Public Services, or Kris Niedringhaus, Associate Dean for Library and Information Services.