Bad design costs me twenty quid 16 October, 2003
A whacking £20.00 fine this morning for a short loan book that was 10 days late. Bah! I could’ve bought 4 used copies in the same condition as the one I returned for that. And what’s worse is that the stupid library system waited for three days after the due date before ‘reminding’ me that it was late. Now I can (grudgingly) afford £20, but it’s a heck of a lot more to a student. You could argue that because of that a student would’ve remembered to return it, but I think that there’s a design problem here. I don’t want to be told when the book’s overdue – I want to be reminded when it’s due so that I can get it back on time. Surely that’s the point so that everyone has access to the book.