10 Jan 2017

 A senior library officer at Francistown Public Library, Ms Neo Motsumi says failure to return library books within stipulated dates by users continues to be a challenge that negatively affects their services.

Ms Motsumi said this in an interview, noting that library records indicate that as of November last year to date, 129 books were overdue, adding that at times some of these overdue books are never returned at all.

“Issues of failure to return the books negatively affect us, as of 2013 to date the total costs of books not returned and those overdue amounts to P 10 847.17. Most of the overdue books are those borrowed by the youth and mostly they are recreational and revision books,” she said.

Ms Motsumi indicated that 64 books were borrowed by the youth and 35 were borrowed by adults while 30 were borrowed by children.

She also highlighted that though they are given annual funds to run the services offered at the library, it is still a challenging to replace those books.

She said though most books can be accessed online, failure to return the books still affects them as they have limited resources for their clients to access the Internet.

Ms Motsumi further said in an effort to rectify the situation they have implemented measures to recover borrowed books. She highlighted that the measures include physical follow ups, calling clients to remind them and later on sending a notice which comes along with a charge.

“Physical follow ups proved to bring positive results, however they are compromised by some clients who relocate to different areas or change their physical addresses and fail to notify the library management,” she said.

She said although physical follow ups help to recover some of the books, the measure is costly especially that transport is a challenge. She said they have also come up with a way to help clients extend the book loan period as they have since realised that some clients are forced to keep the book for longer periods.

As technology continues to take over the world Ms Motsumi shared that in trying to keep their clients abreast with the rest of the world, they have introduced free internet.

She said this has given most clients an opportunity to be computer literate and further access information that might not be available in the books within the library.

Moreover she said this has also significantly increased the number of visits and membership.

Ms Motsumi also highlighted that the library management is impressed as there has not been any issues of vandalism of the library computers or any unacceptable manner since the introduction of the free internet. ENDS