In New York, libraries will no longer charge late fees. On this side of the Atlantic, a law puts an end to unfair competition from Amazon, which bypassed the single price of the book. Two events that remind us that access to reading is a struggle.
Zero dollar. New York City Libraries will no longer charge their readers late fees. Better still, the four hundred thousand New Yorkers whose loan cards were blocked because they owed at least $ 15 in fines for books borrowed and not returned have had their accounts purged. Objective of the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio: to make libraries accessible to everyone, especially the poorest populations. “Fines are an outdated and ineffective way of encouraging customers to return their books, explained Oct. 5 Anthony W. Marx, president of the New York Public Library. “For those who do not have the means to pay them, they have become a real obstacle to access to reading that we can no longer support. “
This decision is part of a wider movement in the United States, initiated by the city halls of Chicago and San Diego in 2019. With success it seems, since thousands of readers have returned overdue books to public libraries of Chicago, who have also seen a strong renewal of their subscriptions.
0.01 euro. This is the price at which Amazon will no longer be able to ship books ordered over the Internet in France. Despite significant lobbying from the American multinational, the deputies unanimously adopted a law on Wednesday 6 October establishing a floor price for sending books. They thus put an end to the unfair competition imposed by Amazon on independent bookstores, simply because of its power. In doing so, the law on the single book price of 1981 and that of 2014 prohibiting the free sending of books can no longer be circumvented, neither in letter nor in spirit.
That is not all: the deputies also unanimously adopted yesterday a second bill consecrating freedom and free access to libraries in France and strengthening the public reading policy. France and the United States, the same fight for books and reading.
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