“Eliminating late fines means providing truly equitable access to everything the library has to offer,” one top official said.
New York City’s public libraries will no longer charge late fees and will waive existing fines for overdue books and other materials, city officials announced Tuesday. Late fees had already been suspended since March 2020 because of the and will now be permanently eliminated, elected officials and leaders of the city’s three public library systems said in a news release. The New York Public Library began reopening the rest of its available locations in July. “This announcement is another major step towards making our public libraries, the heart of so many communities, accessible to all,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
