Library deals with damaged books and replacement fees

By Zach Bergevin,
BlueDevilHub.com Staff–

The Davis High library receives an onslaught of returned novels and textbooks at the end of each school year, but has to deal with hundreds of lost, damaged or stolen books as well. The library must not only replace lost books, but also repair any damaged book that may be salvaged.

Librarian Bruce Cummings says that damaged or lost books are a monumental task that must be taken care of along with all other end-of-year operations. “Typically the problem is that when a student damages a book in January, he or she will, for whatever reason, not tell us [the librarians] about it until they return the book at the end of the year,” Cummings said.

According to Cummings, the largest issue is when students are not proactive about dealing with their damaged textbooks early on in the year when the event occurs. He pointed to a book that was particularly destroyed by water damage and explained why it must be thrown out. “I can’t issue this book again because it has mold, so it is a loss,” Cummings said.

When a student returns a damaged book to the library, Cummings or another librarian will examine it and determine whether or not it can be repaired for a fee, reissued the way it is or whether it must be completely scratched. According to Cummings, if the book can be salvaged, they will only charge a smaller fee of 5 or 10 dollars.

“For example, if there are missing pages, we will go to another book, photocopy those same pages, and insert them into the book that is missing the pages. We also have special mending tape to use on corners to reinforce weakened or chewed up parts of the book,” Cummings said.

One liability that Cummings warns incoming students checking out textbooks about is missing pages. If the librarians ran an assessment on a particular book, do not find an issue and pass on the damaged book to a new student, the risk is transferred to the new student. Cummings warns all students to “inspect new books carefully and notify us immediately if there are any conspicuous problems so that you are not held accountable for the damage from another student. We are very willing to believe students if they come in at the beginning of the year that the damage was already present, but if they wait until June, it is likely that they will have to pay for missing pages.”

However, if the book is too damaged for repair, they will bill the student with the cost of a new book or allow the student to find another copy in comparable condition.

The issues with damaged or lost books do not occur only in rare cases, but actually are very prevalent each year. According to the head of the finance office Cheryl Ozga, already in this fiscal year, 3,390.70 dollars has been paid by students to replace or repair textbooks and other library materials.

Ozga states that this number actually may still be an underestimate of this year’s replacement fees. “Keep in mind that we will still probably receive more money in the next few weeks as the school years ends and people are clearing their debts to graduate and get their diploma,” Ozga said.

During the 2014-2015 fiscal year, Davis High received 5764.60 dollars for lost or damaged textbooks. According to Cummings, not all of the data for what the library pays for damaged books and how students return them is tabulated each year because the primary focus is just to recover the books and prepared them to be distributed.

Cummings expects this year to be especially busy with end-of-year business on top of the standard book returns due to the new student center and the changes that will take place in the library. If the budget permits, Cummings plans on not only moving the larger shelves of the fiction section at the entrance of the library, but placing new furniture there to increase study space as well.