25 Sep Things I Love About Bend, Oregon: Volume 4- 41 Day Grace Period at Deschutes Public Library

Where else but in Bend, Oregon can you take out 100 books at a time and then return them up to 7 days late with no fine? I’ll be damned if I know. We moved to Bend from Evanston, Illinois, and I used to be impressed that one can take out 75 books at a time at the Evanston Public Library, which is more than double the paltry 30-book limit imposed by the downright miserly Chicago Public Library.

The truth is that I don’t plan to check out 100 books at a time, but the 7-day grace period, which applies to books, DVDs and everything else, is heaven sent and so very Bend, the town that is so nice the public library goes out of its way NOT to fine you. But I wonder if the grace period will backfire on us. If a book is due October 1, will I mentally calculate that the true due date is October 8 and then still return it late?

Who knows but the stakes aren’t Manute Bol high. After the grace period fines are 10 cents per day, maxing out at $2 per “incident.” But wait, it gets better. For kid’s items, there are no fines whatsoever for a full 41 days after the due date. Day 42, on the other hand, is a day of reckoning- you have to pay the full replacement cost plus a $5 non-refundable processing fee for adult of children’s books.

And if your fines SOMEHOW get up to $50-and if they do, you really are one colossal fuckup-they will send your ass to a place called Unique Management Services who apparently perform the unique managerial service of shaking your ass down for the d’oh. So don’t even go there.