{"id":117125,"date":"2017-10-27T09:00:57","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T13:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=117125"},"modified":"2017-10-26T20:16:53","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T00:16:53","slug":"whats-scarier-library-fines-turning-scarecrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/27\/whats-scarier-library-fines-turning-scarecrow\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s Scarier: Library Fines or Turning into a Scarecrow?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last Thursday, at the New York Public Library\u2019s Countee Cullen branch, in Harlem, city officials gathered to announce the forgiveness of all fines on cards held by borrowers aged seventeen and younger. It was a recognition that even the best of us can incur these basic civic penalties\u2014in 2010 George Washington\u2019s estate at Mount Vernon replaced a book, checked out to \u201cPresident,\u201d which had started accruing fines at the New York Society Library 221 years earlier. It was also a recognition that library fines may unduly burden the most vulnerable. Across New York\u2019s three library systems\u2014NYPL, Brooklyn, and Queens\u2014161,000 of 927,000 youth cards had been blocked due to fines of at least fifteen dollars. The average blocked card, at the time of the amnesty, owed about fifty-five dollars. Countee Cullen tied for the highest rate of blocked youth cards in the NYPL system, at 28 percent, and in some of the city\u2019s poorest neighborhoods, rates exceeded 40 percent. All three library presidents spoke of young patrons who, already barred from borrowing books, may, for fear or for shame, stop visiting the library entirely.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to live in that kind of society,\u201d NYPL president Anthony Marx said, after the announcement, which took place on the building\u2019s bright, open-plan teen floor, with the tops of trees and the cornices of town houses peeking through the windows. Marx pointed out that public-school students who enjoy fine-free borrowing privileges through a current pilot program are ultimately no likelier to fail to return books than are those who face fines. The NYPL is considering eliminating fines entirely, though this would require a significant endowment to offset the revenue loss. (To fund-raise during the Great Depression, some public-library systems encouraged their patrons to keep books late and intentionally incur fines.) For now, at least, youth fines began accruing again at the moment of the amnesty. The libraries hope that educational initiatives will improve renewals and timely returns.<\/p>\n

Marx couldn\u2019t remember the last time he was late with a book, but confessed he goes in to pay off his children\u2019s fines with some regularity, which, all considered, is \u201cembarrassing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crowd from the announcement cleared just as the after-school crowd began filtering in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way we know each other is we go to the same library,\u201d one girl, an eleventh grader, said, to explain how the assembling friends spanned different schools and class years. (Later, a girl who had been silently using her phone while facing a blank wall for ninety minutes would stand up and solemnly intone, \u201cAll right, bye. I don\u2019t like none of y\u2019all; I don\u2019t know half of y\u2019all.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Of the first group to settle in, only one student, Jayden Rodriguez, a junior at Thurgood Marshall Academy, was aware of the amnesty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve actually heard of that,\u201d he said. \u201cThere was actually a man that came into this library. People are saying this one man paid for everyone\u2019s debts.\u201d (The fines will be covered by a $2.25-million grant from the JPB Foundation; a previous youth amnesty, on a similar scale, took place in 2011.)<\/p>\n

Jayden estimated his current library fine at \u201ctwo-thousand-something dollars.\u201d His family moved, when he was in middle school, and he left a book at his old house, on 137th Street. \u201cI actually forgot about it until I tried to use the card again. This was three years ago.\u201d (For teens, fines are capped at twelve dollars per item, which prevents any single checkout from hitting the fifteen-dollar cutoff. Jayden shrugged placidly at this information. He just knew it was blocked.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got, like, four library cards and I have fines on all of them,\u201d Mackenzie Marshall, a freshman at TMA, offered. \u201cLike,\u00a0thirty dollars\u00a0currently. Let me go get this thing wiped clean so I can check out some books and be a good scholar!\u201d she said, with cheerful sarcasm.<\/p>\n

Rebecca Somefun, who attends one of the Evander Childs high schools, in the Bronx, was also blocked. A friend used her card and failed to return the items.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe borrowed a book and<\/em> a movie,\u201d she said, adding that DVDs are the worst, since the fines for movies are\u00a0three dollars a day, more than ten times the rate for books.<\/p>\n

In short order, the white king from a chess set, an errant sub-cube of a Rubik\u2019s Cube, and Mackenzie\u2019s glasses\u2014dislodged in a playful slap-fight with Rebecca\u2014all skittered under the computer table where Mackenzie was scrolling through Google image results. She was trying to settle whether the offspring of the demon dolls Chucky and Tiffany, in the Child\u2019s Play <\/em>horror franchise, is a boy or a girl.<\/p>\n

The library was in the midst of being decorated for Halloween, with paper cutouts of ghosts and jack-o-lanterns on the windows, vinyl posters of black cats against violet skies, and displays of Y.A. novels on whose holographic covers schoolteachers and lunch ladies shape-shift into monsters.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey,\u201d Jayden said to Mackenzie. \u201cWhat\u2019s your worst fear?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t actually know. I\u2019m afraid of heights, snakes, and spiders. You?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTurning into a scarecrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Countee Cullen branch manager, Nicole Nelson, was down at the main desk. In contrast with the library and city officials, who were, to the woman, dressed in plain navy suits, Nelson wore brown suede stiletto ankle boots, a cardigan dress in midnight green with bright red detailing, a necklace of big golden trapezoids, flashy retro Gucci glasses, and a tattoo of her daughter\u2019s name, Alexis, on her lower leg.<\/p>\n

She reported that about twenty people had come in that day since the announcement\u2014kids, or parents of kids, whose cards had been blocked. The staff were phoning patrons, welcoming them back.<\/p>\n

Did Nelson herself used to get library fines?<\/p>\n

\u201cI still<\/em> get fines,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to lie to you. I forget the books at home. Sometimes I say, I\u2019m gonna bring it tomorrow, then tomorrow comes five days later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her longest overdue book as a kid?<\/p>\n

\u201cForever<\/em>, by Judy Blume.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rafil Kroll-Zaidi is a contributing editor at<\/em> Harper’s Magazine. His story \u201c<\/em>Lifeguards<\/a>\u201d\u00a0appeared in issue no. 217 (Summer 2016) of <\/em>The Paris Review.<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Last Thursday, at the New York Public Library\u2019s Countee Cullen branch, in Harlem, city officials gathered to announce the forgiveness of all fines on cards held by borrowers aged seventeen and younger. It was a recognition that even the best of us can incur these basic civic penalties\u2014in 2010 George Washington\u2019s estate at Mount […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":382,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[7622,31268,4655,7711,31269,31271,31270],"class_list":["post-117125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-anthony-marx","tag-countee-cullen-branch","tag-george-washington","tag-harlem","tag-n-y-p-l","tag-nicole-nelson","tag-thurgood-marshall-academy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat's Scarier: Library Fines or Turning Into a Scarecrow?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The New York Public Library declares amnesty on fines for borrowers seventeen years old or younger.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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