Each night, overdue notices print out automatically. Every day, the notices are placed in the teacher’s office mailbox, and are then distributed to students. Very often, the student finds the book in his or her desk, and it is immediately returned.

Students sometimes do not remember checking out the overdue book, usually because the title printed on the overdue notice does not match what they remember on the cover of the book. The library volunteers and I are always happy to help a student by looking up the complete title and author, helping them to look on the library shelves, helping the student think of places he/she can search for the book in the classroom and at home, etc.

There is a maximum of four notices printed out automatically by the system for each overdue library book. Unfortunately, we have no local control over when these notices are printed, how they look, or what information they contain.

Each notice lists at the top the date the notice was printed. For each overdue book, the notice lists the call number, author, title, due date, and loaning agency (COOPSTACKS means Cooper Library). At the bottom of the page, the name of the student who checked out the book and his/her teacher’s name is listed.

Overdue Notices

First notice: When a book is not returned on its due date, an overdue notice automatically prints during the night, and is ready to deliver to the student the next day.

Second Notice: The next week, if the book has still not been returned, a second notice is printed for the student.

Third Notice: If the book has still not been returned by the following week, a third notice is printed for the student.

Fourth Notice: At this point, the book is considered lost by the system, and the cost of the book is added to the notice.

If the book is not returned or paid for, a copy of the fourth notice is sent home, either with the student or by mail, until the problem is resolved. We would always rather have the book back, since it is sometimes very difficult, (if not impossible), to replace many of the books in our collection.