Carnegie board votes to extend due date for libraries

After a public meeting today, the Board of the Carnegie Library has agreed to extend the due dates on the Beechview, Hazelwood, Lawrenceville and West End branches and will wave all late fees for up to a year.

The library budget previously approved a budget that relied on up to $1.5 million of late fees from patrons that had borrowed the libraries but did not return them on time.

The board said that they had managed to cover the shortfall through a combination of employee attrition, recycling old card catalogs, and not having books that were listed as available on the system, but some how "missing" and non-locatable.

The libraries were stamped out as of December 14, 2009 and are due back December 14, 2010. Failure to return the libraries will result in the loss of library privileges.

When asked for comment, Director Barbara Mistick told reporters to "Shhhhh!"