Texas, it’s a big country where the men walk tall and even the librarians are packing. Or looks that way. Because when a man in the City of Copperas Cove in Coryell County, central Texas, went three years overdue on a library book recently, they reportedly slung him in jail.

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In Texas, the librarian’s arm is long

According to the local report quoting court records, a Mr. Jory Enck was booked into jail for not returning a GED study guide he borrowed in 2010, after ignoring repeated requests from the library. He was then released on bond.

This follows a local city ordinance authorizing police officers to arrest citizens who don’t return their overdue books. The report quotes Julie Lehmann from the Copperas Cove Police Department stating that police officers who routinely stop or encounter a citizen with a warrant out for overdue library books against their name can make an arrest. The ordinance requires at least a 90-day overdue period. Some locals reportedly think the regulation is a tad extreme, but for now it still stands.

I don’t like to think what might happen to any reckless citizen of Copperas Cove who goes overdue on digital library loans. Dead of night helicopter assault by a cybercrimes SWAT team perhaps? Respect your local library. Especially in Texas.

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Paul St John Mackintosh is a British poet, writer of dark fiction, and media pro with a love of e-reading. His gadgets range from a $50 Kindle Fire to his trusty Vodafone Smart Grand 6. Paul was educated at public school and Trinity College, Cambridge, but modern technology saved him from the Hugh Grant trap. His acclaimed first poetry collection, The Golden Age, was published in 1997, and reissued on Kindle in 2013, and his second poetry collection, The Musical Box of Wonders, was published in 2011.

3 COMMENTS

  1. I get that this seems excessive. But from my perch as librarian I see it a little differently. Test prep books are expensive for libraries to buy, and commonly listed as “Lost” in library catalogs for exactly this reason. That is, someone borrows it and never returns it. Suppose you rent a bike and don’t return it? What should happen then? Also note “after ignoring repeated requests from the library”. Libraries don’t do this as a first option, but for some patrons it’s the only way to get the item returned or paid for.

  2. I also work at a library and second Chris’ remark. Remember, these are your tax dollars paying for books purchased for the library. When someone does not return a book, DVD, audio, etc. that means that no one else in the community can read, watch, or listen to it — which is not fair since their tax dollars also went towards the purchase of that item.
    And you know that new best seller that you wished we had more copies of, or the small press book that you would like for us to purchase –can’t do it because we have to replace the test prep book, auto repair manual, Harry Potter book, Hunger Games DVD, etc. that someone decided to check out and not return.
    Also, again echoing Chris — this person was contact numerous times about returning the item and chose to ignore the requests. Libraries just want to get their items back so that other patrons have access to them and we are quite willing to work with patrons who have items overdue. But, if all of your requests and options are ignored, what are you suppose to do? If you read the article about the arrest, you will not that the person was not stopped specifically for the overdue — the police can only act on the warrant if the person is stopped for something else.
    And, to echo Marilynn — e-books do not become overdue — after the checkout period (usually between 7 and 21 days) is over, the book is deleted from your reader. I think that many people have misconceptions on how e-book checkouts work for a library.
    One they always seem to get wrong is the idea that the library can purchase 1 copy of an e-book and that as many patrons as want to can check the e-book out at the same time — e-books are just like “regular” books — if we purchase 1 copy of a “regular” book, then only 1 patron can have it check out and others have to wait until the book is returned before checking it out themselves. The same goes for e-books — and e-books can sometimes cost us up to 300% more than a “regular” book to purchase.

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