NYCHA Librarygoers Bore The Brunt Of Late Fees In Astoria, LIC

ASTORIA-LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — Late fines will no longer keep Queens Public Library cardholders from checking out books; an equity-focused policy change that New York’s library systems instituted this week, since fines disproportionately impacted low-income librarygoers, including in Northwest Queens, data shows.

Before the pandemic, 101,723 QPL patrons who had racked up more than $15 in fines couldn’t check out free library books. This policy, however, has been on hold as of March 2020.

Cardholders with suspended privileges, pre-pandemic, disproportionately belonged to Southeast Queens branches in low-income neighborhoods, according to data provided by the library. At the Baisley Park branch in South Jamaica, for instance, roughly on in five librarygoers had a blocked card.

That pattern holds across Astoria and Long Island City, too, where patrons at two local branches that served public housing developments bore the brunt of late fines.

Blocked cards at branches near NYCHA developments

There are six library branches across Astoria and Long Island City: Astoria, Steinway, Broadway, Long Island City, Ravenswood Family Literacy Center, and Queensbridge Tech Lab.

The latter two, which serve the Ravenswood and Queensbridge housing developments, respectively, had the area’s highest percentage of patrons with blocked cards before this week, data shows.

The Queensbridge Tech Lab branch, for instance, had a blocked-card rate of 18.35 percent — roughly double the percentage of blocked cards at the Astoria branch, where only 9.58 percent of patron’s cards were blocked.

Similarly, 17.92 percent of patrons at the Ravenswood Family Literacy Center had blocked cards, data shows.

The blocked-card rates at the Queensbridge and Ravenswood branches are on par with those QPL branches across Queens with the highest percentage of blocked cards.

Just over 18 percent of cardholders had suspended privileges at QPL’s South Jamaica and South Hollis branches — the system’s fourth- and fifth-highest percentage of blocked cards.

Patch compared the top five QPL branches with the highest percentage of blocked cards to the percentage of suspended cards at the Queensbridge and Ravenswood branches here:

‘A barrier to access’

City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer, who represents Northwest Queens and chairs the council’s Committee on Cultural Affairs and Libraries, said that late fees were a barrier to access.

“Access to knowledge is one of the great opportunity equalizers in our society,” he said, adding that fees kept people from “check[ing] out books, and in many instances, it kept people from even visiting their local library.”

As Van Bramer has pointed out in the past, libraries are critical access points not just for knowledge, but also social services.

During the coronavirus pandemic alone, Queens’ 62 library branches have doubled as testing sites, and offered other basic services that not all patrons have at home, like Internet and air conditioning.

"During the pandemic, it was clearer than ever that we live in a Tale of Two Cities, with our most vulnerable citizens too often left behind," New York Public Library president Anthony W. Marx said in a statement, adding that abolishing late fines is central to making the city’s libraries more accessible.

The three New York City library systems have slightly differing rules about fees going forward, but all have eliminated late fines.

In Queens, the public libraries also eliminated collection fees, processing fees, and fees on book requests that aren’t picked up.

Patrons, however, will still have to pay a replacement fee if they check out library materials and don’t return them about a month past their due date. Librarygoers with $50 in replacement fees, or more than 20 overdue items, won’t be able to check out books, but can still use branches’ computers, e-books, and other digital services.

Find out more about QPL fines and fees here.