Our strategic challenges were to gather evidence on fines as a barrier to library access and materials borrowing, to quantify the amnesty’s ROI and to inform our institutions’ longer-term decision-making about fines policy. Our operational challenge was to do so in a way that focused on the library relationships and behaviors of cohorts of children and teens, while protecting their privacy. Our opportunity was to execute all of the above in a way that could meaningfully contribute to the national discussion on fines policy.

To our knowledge, libraries have measured the success of fine amnesties in absolute terms, without isolating their incremental impact from regular changes in patron behavior which can’t be attributed to the interventions. The innovation of our assessment was its pre- vs. post- methodology, covering cohorts of affected youth over time and across community affluence levels. This allowed us, for the first time, to quantify the library relationships restored, and the borrowing activated, as a direct result of the amnesty.

Our amnesty benefited 480K NYC youth, including about 200,000 blocked patrons. Key findings: while overall card activity was fairly constant pre- vs. post-amnesty, the amnesty increased borrowing among affected patrons — especially among previously blocked ones. At NYPL, this increase was directly proportional to neighborhood poverty — evidence that fines constrain use for those who need us the most. Our systems continue to investigate fines policy changes, having learned the benefits and limits of one-time interventions.