Overdue Library Fines? Porter Library Tells Kids "Forget About It"

WESTLAKE, OH — The Westlake Porter Public Library is taking part in a nine-library initiative aimed at putting a library card in the hands of every child under 18 in Cuyahoga County. The "A Card for Every Kid Library Challenge" will take place in September, starting Sept. 1 and ending Sept. 30.

The initiative is a cooperative effort to bring awareness to the importance of library card ownership. Every library in Cuyahoga County will be working to get students signed-up for free library cards. As part of the initiative, students who already own library cards, but owe fines, will be able to take advantage of fine forgiveness in September.

"All the libraries in the county are taking part in this [initiative]," Anita Woods, assistant library director at Porter told Patch. "We definitely want to be part of something like that."

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Last year, more than 9,100 library cardholders took part in the A Card for Every Kid Library Challenge fine forgiveness program and more than 4,000 new library cards were issued. Four months after the new cards were issued, 80 percent of the children who received them visited a local library. The stats for the Porter library were not available at the time of publication.

"We want to make sure all kids have cards," Woods said. "We want them to be able to access all of our materials, be that a book, a DVD, or something else."

This year, the nine libraries participating in the A Card for Every Kid Library Challenge include: Cleveland Public Library, Cuyahoga County Public Library, East Cleveland Public Library, Euclid Public Library, Heights Libraries, Lakewood Public Library, Rocky River Public Library, Shaker Heights Public Library, and Westlake Porter Public Library.

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