Borrower Policy
The Borrower Policy has been designed to bring people together with the information they need and to maintain the most liberal lending policy possible without allowing borrowers to abuse their borrowing rights to the detriment of others.
In October 2015, an amnesty was held as it was identified that a significant number of overdue books, DVDs and CDs were missing from East Lothian Libraries. There was also around £27,000 in combined fines/charges outstanding.
In April 2016 the Library Service introduced a new policy which should reduce the ability of Library borrowers to run up library fines or hold overdue books for any length of time. The Library Service spends around £200,000 a year on the purchase of new books and Library resources.
The new policy introduced a series of overdue reminders, either sent by email or by post, to prompt library members to return overdue items. The first reminder will be sent three days before an item is due for return. If, after three reminders items are not returned, invoices will be sent for replacement costs.
Over the last few years, East Lothian Council Library Service has been working on developing a digital library service for library members with eBooks, eAudio, eNewspapers, eMagazines and a number of online training courses available. The beauty of using the digital library is that there are no fees, no fines and no chance of having any overdue items!
East Lothian Council runs 12 Branch libraries and lends in the region of half a million (500,000) items a year.