I REFER to Friday's report, ('Pay your library fine, or else') on the National Library's plan to suspend borrowing privileges if fines are outstanding.

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Why not spend the $250k to buy more books? Notify them to pay up? Don't waste money. Just stop them from borrowing. When they want to borrow library books, they just have to pay up!

NLB should tell us how much the S$250k will bring back in terms of fines received plus cost of books recovered ($$ saved from buying replacement books)

If the S$250k is totally spent without any recovery of books and fines, then it is a total waste.....but it is unlikely as {fines + books recovered} = {postage cost} X ?

The old NKF under that Durian fellow was doing similar stuff : sending expensive looking newsletter to donors - benefitting both the printer and SingPost. The amt$ shld be spent on more meaningful stuff: purchase new books; give free school book vouchers to needy children, etc.............

If you owe the government 10 cents, it will be ready to spend a dollar to recover it from you.

NLB must have done their sums that the fine recovery will be more than $250k. Also, other intangible benefits like deterring the general public from returning late.

simple_simon, we can't simply assume they have done their sum. it's complacancy that gives MSK the escape.

I want to be fair here. I think the library is doing an exemplary job here. The degree of their service level and the facilities they upkeep is definitely way better than the poor general Singaporean service you'll experience at the retail side. Walk into any library and appreciate how far they've come along, and how far ahead than many libraries in the world. Try as I might, I honestly cannot give the same compliments to our public transport, some of our other civil service or quasi governmental agencies. Cut the library board some slack.

I believe NLB 's spending of $250,000 could be a rough estimate, including the resources such as printing and sending these fine mailers, updating of transactions via nets/cheque/cashcard or their prepaid account or other payment mode such as cheque. Customer Service Training of Staff, Making sure their library ekiosks are functional, easy to use play a role etc.

I agree to wugui1977 mentioned earlier.NLB has indeed done alot to us already, getting best facilities,fully air-conditioned public and reference libraries large flat screen PC monitors, new and interesting books etc.

One can always refer to NLB's annual report online and printed in its website to see where they had spent the money to.

It's ok, during economic downturn, we need more government spending. The money will be injected into the economy, generate revenue for businesses and less people will be retrenched.