HAS there been some kind of revolution in library management this past year or two? I recall library fines as being puny-nickels and dimes even for books overdue by a month or more. And then it seemed-and this is impressionistic because I am, you understand, normally punctilious about returning library books on time-it seemed that the fines had suddenly multiplied tenfold. On one occasion last year, for the first time in my life, I paid a library fine with paper money, and got no change.
Well, no more. On my birthday this year I passed one of those milestones that appear as Middle Age shades off into Senior Citizenship. Tidying my study a few days after the birthday, I turned up a book that was disgracefully overdue. It was Peter Ackroyd’s Albion, just as gripping and learned as all his others, but somehow set aside and forgotten in the drifts and piles of books that accumulate so relentlessly in my much-too-small study. I hastened down to the library with it, bracing myself for a monstrous fine. But: “Thank you!” chirped the librarian as she finished checking in the book, her voice and manner clearly indicating that our transaction was over.
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