CW MARS Consortium Moves Towards Fine Free

CW MARS continues to embrace our core values of equity, diversity and access by working towards eliminating overdue fines for patrons of all member libraries.  We recognize that overdue fines present an economic barrier to the access of library materials and services and can be a form of social inequity.

At a recent governance meeting, our member libraries voted to remove overdue fines from our standard circulation policies.  This means that any new library wishing to join the consortium must not charge overdue fines on circulating items (there are a few exceptions allowed for special items like equipment, museum passes, hotspots, etc).

Our current member libraries are working toward removing overdue fines for their patrons.  As of today, over 85% of our libraries are fine free, 84% of our items are fine free, and 86% of all CW MARS patrons are not being charged fines on overdue items.