Jeesh - when they said that this would go on your permanent record, I had no idea it meant this:

Borrowers who fail to return Queens Library books can be reported to a collection agency and to a credit bureau, with a damaged credit rating as a result — a tactic that so shocked one Far Rockaway rabbi that he filed a lawsuit. The collection policy also has pulled libraries — places where generations of children have learned moral lessons about returning what they borrow — into the debate on just how much punishment is appropriate for failing to return a library book.

Never enough. Furthermore, as the looming recession looms - brought on my that most odd (but sadly common) combination seen in the housing crisis of utter greed meeting the abandonment of any appreciation of value - it is to these librarians that the economy should turn for their understanding of what a dollar is worth. To paraphrase Warren Buffet when facing a value proposition: "that transaction was done just the way a librarian would have liked it to be done — no consultants or studies." The same applies whether it is a multi-billion dollar investment of a nickle a day late fee. Pay up now, kid.