An early Christmas gift is coming from the Gravenhurst Public Library! We are excited to announce that the GPL Board voted, at its December 9, 2021 meeting, to go fine free. This means that starting immediately, all outstanding overdue fines will be cleared from people’s Gravenhurst Public Library accounts and overdue fines will not be charged when items are returned.
The GPL Board believe that each and every member of our community should be able to use the Library freely and fully with dignity and without fear of overdue fines, regardless of their financial status. They identified that fines were preventing some members of the community from accessing library services. Either people would stop using the library after accumulating overdue fines or they wouldn’t renew their membership because of past overdue fines.
You still need to return your library items as soon as you can so others may use them. Library collections are a resource that we share as a community in Gravenhurst. If items are not returned after a period of time or are lost or damaged, replacement charges will still apply. The GPL Board has also implemented a short term two-month amnesty on long overdue items so that people can get these back to the Library. We will continue to send reminder notifications about due dates with emails and phone calls.
“We have been talking about going fine free for some time now and are so excited to offer this to our patrons and the community of Gravenhurst. We understand that sometimes life gets in the way and we don’t want overdue fines to keep people from using all the great Library resources and services that are available to everyone” said GPL Chair Dave Hammill. Julia Reinhart, CEO / Chief Librarian further added “The GPL Board felt there was no better way to celebrate the season of giving than with a clean slate and no fines going forward”.
If people have any issues accessing their accounts online please call the Library at 705-687-3382.
