The City of Sydney council has decided not to impose library fines after a trial found the system less effective in ensuring the return of borrowed items. Photograph: Alamy stock photo

The City of Sydney council has abolished all library fines after an eight-month trial revealed they do not work as an incentive for people to return books.

Three times as many overdue items were returned to the councils libraries during the no-fine trial period, compared with the 12 months before the trial.

The lord mayor, Clover Moore, said fines often had a detrimental effect and frightened borrowers into never returning overdue items. This new approach encourages positive community responsibility and sharing, rather than penalising people, she said.

More than 60,000 items were returned between July last year and February, some of them decades old.

Many of the overdue items came from the self-help section, including books on decluttering and cleaning up. But two copies of Mark Chopper Reads 2001 book, Chopper 10 and a Half: The Popcorn Gangster, were still missing despite being 14 years overdue.

Under the new scheme, those with an overdue book will have their membership suspended and will be barred from borrowing until the item is returned.

Sophie Hicks Lloyd, a Sydney library member who used the new system to return books she had borrowed for her children, told Guardian Australia: I just got an email from them saying we had overdue books and that we could return them now with no fine, and that prompted me to act.

She said the abolition of fines would encourage her to use the library more frequently. Raising that level of trust between us and the library, or the local government, instills a sense of community. We go to the library about once every two months and I think this means we will go more often.

Im pretty sure most library members feel a sense of loyalty to their library and, deep down, we all want to return the books. A little friendly reminder from them is all it takes.

The City of Sydney runs nine libraries in inner Sydney, and has more than 415,000 items available for borrowing.

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City of Sydney scraps library fines after trial shows reminders work ... - The Guardian