Late Fees in the Academic Libraries of the Four-year Public Universities of Kansas

While there has been a general movement in public libraries away from fines for late return of materials, as they are perceived as a barrier to access (American Library Association, 2019), the situation on abolishing fines is not as clear in the academic library community and there is a general lack of literature on this topic concerning academic libraries. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the structure of late fees for various materials in the 4-year public universities in Kansas to gain insight into current practice in academic libraries in Kansas. In addition, the researchers wanted to determine if all policy information related to late fees was freely available on pubic-facing web pages in each library’s website. The library websites of each of the target universities (Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburgh State University, University of Kansas, Wichita State University, and Washburn University) were searched for each institutions policy on return of library materials and any late fees charged. All institutions but one were found to provide details of late fee policies on their web pages, but the location of the policy information was not consistent across institutions and was not always obvious in the structure of the library websites. The data showed a wide range of policies across the various universities. All universities had some form of fee structure related to late or lost items but there was little consistency. Fine amounts were also considered relative to the undergraduate tuition costs of each institution to see if this might explain the widely differing fee amounts.