Hmmm

[telophase]

Normally, when people complain about having to show ID at times such as when paying by credit card, I just roll my eyes.

Today, however, I would like to know just why it is that I have to show my driver's license when paying a $2.25 library fine IN CASH? Wow, maybe I stole someone's library card and am viciously paying their fine! The horror!

Mind you, it's been on my record for about a year. Being a librarian myself, I tend to get most of my library materials at work. I'd tried to pay the fine online a few times, but their online credit card payment system consistently failed to work. But they've recently (for values of "since the last time I looked") instituted an ebook-borrowing thing, and I couldn't try it out without paying the fine and clearing the blocks on my account.


Sent from my iPhone

Comments

[kintail.livejournal.com]

The Toronto Public Library annoyingly requires me to show a librarian an ID or a recent piece of mail with my name and address on it every single year, or it puts an automatic block on my account saying it has "expired" and when it gets close to that time of year I can't even check out books that would be due after my account is set to expire without showing ID so my expiry date can be set to next year-- maybe your library system has a similar automatic block and it had to be cleared before the fine could be marked as paid?

I try not to be too annoyed; it's one of the best public library systems in North America and the city-proper is surrounded by dense suburbs that don't pay municipal taxes to Toronto. I'm sure many people who move from Toronto to the suburbs would love to keep using our system for free if they could (and many who do move away but still work here are willing to pay the non-resident fee).