this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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I've never heard of a library card costing anything. But I guess I'm not really surprised if that happens somewhere.
It's always America... :)
I’ve also never paid for a library card and I live in the US, so it’s clearly not always America. In fact most commenters here are noting they are paying small fees in euros so it seems this trend is common in Europe more so.
I have had like 6 or 7 library cards and they have never cost money
I have yet to see any kind of public library in America that charges for a library card, and I live in a red state.
Where I live, it's free for school children and people on welfare etc. For university students it's 5€ a year, for adults it's 10€.
So really not a lot, but you also get access to a lot of other online services for free (encyclopedia, streaming service for older and arthouse films, magazines etc.)
Late fees are just there to keep you from keeping a book or whatever for long periods of time, because then other wouldn't be able to read them.
My library charges 1€ initially to cover for the cost of the card, then it’s free to use no matter what income, age,…
the library where i live gives you 1 card for free, but you have to pay a dollar if you need to replace it
when i was a kid, we lived on the 'wrong' side of a county line, and thus, in a different township than was part of the nearest (7 miles away) public library's "service area"... tax sources, jurisdictions, and all that jazz. it was outrageously expensive to get an 'out of area' library card.. at least that's what i was told. we never had one.
so our library was a tiny rural library that was housed in an old one-room school house. it was open only a few hours a day, a couple days a week; instead of the 7 days a week at the public library in town (an original carnegie library).