By T. Scott Boatright
Moving to update a pair of policies were the primary orders of business last week during a short 17-minute May Lincoln Parish Library Board of Control meeting.
The tweaks were made to the LPL’s library card policy and fax machine use policy.
As far as the fax machine policy, the LPL Board of Control approved moving to a $1.50 flat per page fee for both sending and receiving faxes with no fee charge for the cover page.
Previously the fee was $1.50 per page, including the cover page, for faxes sent locally and $2 per page, including the cover sheet, for faxes sent long distance, and $1.50 per page including the cover sheet for receiving faxes.
LPL Director Jeremy Bolom said the price tweaks were simply a sign of the times.
“We got a new part and have the fax machine up and running,” Bolom said. “I never understood why we still had a higher fee for the long distance faxing when it’s all done over the internet now, anyway. I just wanted to simplify things.
“The only thing that might still seem a little weird is that we still don’t have a fee for a cover page, which is required. Sometimes people think they get away with just writing on the cover page to avoid any charges, but no, we can’t let that happen, There will be no cover page sent without a second charged page being involved.”
Remaining is the library’s previous policy that the LPL must be notified in advance when a patron is receiving a fax and that the fax must be picked up the day sent or be shredded at the end of the day.
Changes to the library card policy included raising the annual fee for a card to $30 and tightening control of materials minors are allowed access to after Louisiana’s legislature revised state statute 25:225, which states that as of June 1, cards for all currently and newly registered minors under 18 years old are limited by default to check out items from their corresponding age groups (children or teen).
Minors will not be allowed to check out items from any adult section or have access to any digital library collections of databases.
The updated policy stipulates that parents or guardians creating a minor’s account or who provide proof of guardianship may opt out of the default restricted card for minors at any time by adding a signature of acknowledgement to their child’s patron record, converting it to a Teens Plus or Children Plus card.
For emancipated minors, a parent’s or guardian’s permission will not be required to obtain a library card.
Minor Patrons are broken into the following age categories:
-
Children —- Ages 1 day through 12 years old with access restricted to Children’s Section materials only
-
Children’s Plus — Ages 1 day through 12 years old with full access to all library materials with the permission of a parent or guardian.
-
Teens —- Ages 13 through 17 with access restricted to Children’s and Teen’s Sections materials only
-
Teens Plus — Ages 13 through 17 with access for all library materials with parental permission
