There are other antiquated and needless restrictions in connexion with the borrowing right which need not be specified at length, but are grouped together here as examples of bad rules for which there is little justification.
1. The illegal charge of 1d. or 2d. for tickets or voucher forms, still levied in some places in defiance of the Public Libraries Act, 1892, Section 11, Sub-section (3); and various judicial decisions.
2. Requiring more than three days’ notice before issuing a borrowe[327]r’s ticket. (In some places borrowers are required to wait for a week or fourteen days from the date of lodging their application for tickets.)
3. Limiting the time for reading books to less than fourteen days.
4. Refusing to renew books by post-card, letter, telephone, or messenger, and requiring that the actual books shall be brought back to be re-dated.
5. The imposition of fines amounting to more than 1d. per week or part of a week for overdue books. (In certain libraries, some of which are not pressed for funds, the exorbitant fine of 1d. per day is imposed for overdue books, with a time limit of seven, ten and fourteen days. This question is further considered in [Section 355].)
6. Refusing to exchange books on the same day as that on which they are issued. (As the books which are brought back for exchange are usually those which the borrowers have read previously, there seems little need for such a disobliging rule.)
7. Refusing to issue books on the same day as that on which they are returned to the library. (A common practice in the old-fashioned libraries, worked by means of charging ledgers, but still found in several much more up-to-date libraries. The same craze for tantalizing the public has in a minor degree infected some open access lending libraries which will not re-issue returned books until they have been replaced on their shelves by the assistants.)
8. Charging borrowers 1d. or 2d. as a penalty for losing their tickets and requiring them to be re-issued. (Query, a contravention of the Act.)
9. Disallowing the use of ink for copying purposes in all circumstances.