The University has accumulated a total of £283,188.55 through library fines since 2008, Exeposé can reveal.
Last academic year the library made £63,574 through fines alone, and this academic year they had obtained £25,832 by the beginning of January 2013.
The library has also regularly obtained over £60,000 from library fines annually since 2008. This information was obtained after Exeposé submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOI) to the library.
The library’s Customer Services Manager, Stephen Mossop, stated: “Library resources, no matter how extensive, are finite, and the library is under an obligation to ensure that they are held in common for the benefit of all members of the University.”
He also explained: “We often waive fines where there are extenuating circumstances or where we are convinced that there has been a genuine misunderstanding. Last year we waived fines totaling almost £22,000 for such reasons.”
Mossop outlined that the money accumulated through fines is used to help “facilitate purchases identified from direct student requests under the ‘I Want One Of These’ scheme.”
Some of the money collected on particular days is also given to charity, and approximately £700 was raised for Children in Need and other RAG charities last November.
Mossop explained that the money is “used across the range of library services that are in place to support students, such as book and journal spending, study space provision, equipment and facilities.”
The library cannot, however, provide an exact breakdown of where and how this money is spent.
Some students have expressed dissatisfaction with this lack of transparency. A second year English student commented on the fines: “It’s ridiculous that we aren’t able to see exactly where this large amount of money is going. How can we know if it is benefitting us at all? Those who have accumulated £50 library fines for forgetting about a ready text for a short amount of time deserve to know what their money is going towards.”
Imogen Sanders, VP Academic Affairs, commented: “Having sat on the Library Budget Governance Group, I have seen how the library is making considerable investments to ensure that students are at the forefront of its expenditures.”
One great scheme in particular is Library Champions, which allows students to tell the library which books they want them to buy if they don’t already have them.”
By Clara Plackett, Arts editor
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