I know I may be in the minority about this, but I've become a lot more laissez-faire about overdues over the course of the year.

When I first got here, we had a strict policy of no checkout if students had overdue books. I would pass names on the assistant principal of students who had long overdue books, and she would follow up on it. We did give some detentions, too.

We also used to tell 8th graders that they wouldn't be able to get their yearbooks at the end of the year until they returned or paid for their overdue items.

None of this is the case now.

Destiny sends out weekly overdue notices to students' parents. If a student wants to check out a book, and they have an overdue item, we usually let them check out the new item as long as the overdue item isn't extremely overdue. We also have an unlimited checkout policy in my Grades 7-8 school. I had a student earlier this year who I knew was a fairly responsible kid, and he set a record by returning 17 overdue books on one day. Most of them were only a few days or a week overdue, and I had emailed his parents personally the day before about them. I will often chat with kids when they check out a book and if they have an overdue book, I will ask them if they know where it is. If they tell me it's at home, I'll ask them where. If I get time, I will then send a personal email to their parent asking them to remind their student to return the overdue book and telling them where their child said the book was. I just did that a little while ago. Here's a response I just got moments later from the girl's mother:

I HAD JUST HAD THE CONVERSATION LAST WEEK WHEN THE NOTICE WAS SENT OUT.

I ASKED HER TO FIND IT AND RETURN IT.

I WILL HAVE THE CONVERSATION ABOUT IN AGAIN THIS EVENING AND I AM SURE YOU WILL HAVE THE BOOK ,"the SELECTION" BY Monday AT THE LATEST.

In general, I spend a lot less time stressing about overdues. At the end of the year, we do withhold the 8th graders' promotion certificates if they still owe an item. And their overdue record follows them to the high school, where it can affect their ability to later get parking passes, to graduate, etc.

The bottom line is by the end of the year, we get all but a handful of our overdue books returned or paid for,and we spend a lot less time stressing about it. This works for me, but I realize it's not going to work for everyone. In my first job, I had a library clerk who used to drive to kids' homes to try to collect overdue books!

David Bilmes
Library Media Specialist
Schaghticoke Middle School
23 Hipp Road
New Milford, CT 06776
(860) 354-2204, ext. 113 or 115
bilmesd@newmilfordps.org

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It was brought to my attention that our school does not have a Overdue/Lost policy in place. When I came to the school, I continued to follow the procedures that were in place by the previous librarian which is the following...

*   Students receive an overdue notice in their LA class and are given an additional week to return the book.
*   If after this time period - students are then taken out of lunch and serve a lunch detention in the library until the book is either returned or paid for (or if the student says it is lost).
*   If a student loses more than two books during the year - they are not allowed to take any more books out from the library.

I am not a huge fan of this procedure but was informed by the library aide who has worked here for years that "it works" to get the books back. However, that being said, our Principal received a call from a parent stating that since there is no written policy currently in place, we can not have students staying for lunch detentions,etc. So we decided now is a good time to get a policy in place in the student handbook for next school year.

So my question to you all is would you be willing to share your policies/procedure that you might have in place that you feel works?

Thank you-

Amanda Newland

Library Media Specialist

Cromwell Middle School

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