Submitted by cobbm on May 16, 2008 - 12:44am
Registering for classes is serious. If you don't get into the class you need, you may need to wait a year to take it again, meanwhile missing out on other classes that require the initial class as a prerequisite. This can postpone graduation, resulting in the loss of thousands of dollars.
In the real world, when people return books late to a public library, they do not get fired. They simply get a late fee.
The difference between a WWU and a public library, is that a public library is not as money thirsty and does not have as much control over the life of their customers. It is completely SICK that WWU would actually use late fees at the library as an excuse to get an extra few quarters of tuition out of the students.
Library fees are logical and necessary to provide incentive to return books on time. However, blocking the student's ability to register for classes is way to severe a consequence for a late book. It is wrong of WWU to use their power this way. PLease change the policy.
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no
they email you multiple times when your item is late. and i'm pretty sure they tell you about the registration rule in that email.
if you can't find the book, talk to the staff about replacing it or renewing it so there is no hold on your account.
here's an idea. if you can't find the book, you can pay the replacement money to the library to take the hold off your account. but then you could get a grace period of a couple weeks for you to find the book and get a full refund.
Agreed!
Agreed!
late fees
I have a friend who had to change his course schedule for the year because he wasn't able to register on time for fall quarter -- he had outstanding library fees of a few dollars, and the day of registration (when he found out there was a hold on his account), the library was closed for training and he couldn't get ahold of anyone (he was registering from his parents' home in another state). So, there's a horror story. There should be some incentive for paying fines -- otherwise most people probably won't ever pay -- but it shouldn't be something quite so potentially damaging to one's academic career. Maybe they should just hold people's diplomas ransom after graduation until they've paid up their library fines.
I think we sould get rid
I think we sould get rid late fees. I don't think that returning books on time is that important, especially when they aren't requested by others. No late fees, no more enrollment/graduation blocks, no more scammy fees.
here here!
here here!
I doubt administration
I doubt administration really planned to use late fees for blocking graduation. It's more of a matter of database integration. Library fees are listed identically to other outstanding bills. Its all the same to the computer database, and nobody in charge has bothered to authorize the supurb expense of hireing a specialist to modify the existing system. Remember, most managment aged people fear change particulairly when it involves the 'computer system'. I certinly built my computer science courses around the goal of avoiding database managment, and now I'm an English major.
The library fee graduation block is definately unfair and should be changed, just remember there's a lot of influential people who consider it the lesser of two evils; the othe being computer retraining!
Library late fees
I agree with the student on the top of this discussion. In my opinion, late fees are a good thing in that they ensure students equal opportunity to access library information.
However, the punishments for late returns are severe. Maybe the new administration should block Western student cards instead of blocking class registration. This would give students just as much insentive to pay late fees quicker, because blocked cards would mean no access to campus facilities like dining halls, the rec center, and others?