Over The Edge Page 4 : .

The Finer Points

BY MICAHEL DOBIE

MONTREAL (CUP) —
Students, watch out. That

open book prominently di.

played on the crest of many
Canadian universities could
snap shut on your pocke
book if you’re not paying
attention. “i
University libraries are
adopting an attitude of
caveat emptor buyer beware
— for those of you who
flunked Latin 101. If you're
like most students, you.use
the campus library, and
maybe even borrow books
on occasion. But be sure to
get those books back on time
and make sure your borrow-
er record has been cleared.
Because if don’t, you'll most
likely incur the wrath of the
library and have hell — or
rather fines, to pay.
“It was a harrowing experi-
ence,” Concordia journalism
student Shaun Finn admited.

Continued From Page 2

and minimal changes will be
made; however, natural
areas adjacent to human
activities may be slightly and
carefully modified to improve
solar exposure aesthetics,
and view planes.

The areas that will not be
left in their natural state will
be divided into agriculture
areas and community areas.
The agricultural areas will
include greenhouses, and
hothouses, market gardens,
woodlots, orchards, and
areas which house livestock
such as ducks, geese, chick-
ens, sheep, horses, goats,
rabbits, and fish. The com-
munity areas will be based
on co-housing models with
shared indoor and outdoor
areas. There will also be a

Research and _ Learning
Centre which will house
research and meeting

rooms, offices and a library.
Equipment used for research
in the areas of water conser-
vation, waste management,
alternative energy sources
and energy conservation will
also be stored there.

Some of the reasons for
the plans of the people of
EcoVillage North x

He recently: paid $100 in
overdue fines for hanging on
to some books past their due
date.

“| totally forgot,” Shaun said.
“| took out a large number of
books, they got lost in my
room under some clothes
and | forgot until | got a late
notice. |-got a bill for lost
charges over $500. | was
totally freaked out. | was in
dread of my life.”

Drama aside, Shaun is just
one of many university stu-
dents across Canada who
‘forget’ to return their books
on time. But some don’t even
forget, they keep their books
on purpose.

“Some students prefer to
pay fines rather than bring
the books back,” explained
Irene Sendek, who works for
Concordia University library
services. She says students
essentially buy books for the
term by hanging on to them

There are some who feel

that before people begin a -

new way of life, they should
fix the areas around them.
The people of EcoVillage
North agree that there does
need to be work done on
many areas of the world, but
before that can be done
there has to be processes
which can be executed.
Hopefully EcoVillage North
will help in the development
of those processes and then
be able to aid other areas in
their implementation of the
processes which succeeded.
EcoVillage North will be a
research community which
attempts to find the most effi-
cient ways of living in the
North. It would be very diffi-
cult to perform the agricultur-
al elements that are being
put forward in an urban set-
ting. The other two ecovillage
in Canada, in Vancouver and
Winnipeg, which are in the
process of creation, do not
have the same accent on
agriculture that EcoVillage
North does and therefore can
be housed in the middle of
those cities. It is just not fea-
sible to attempt farming in
the middle of a city.

and paying the maximum
fine when the course is over.
According to Sendek, fine
structures at some universi-
ties encourage this by
putting a cap on fines usual-
ly between $20 and $30 —
that is often lower than the
replacement cost of the
book. For expensive engi-
neering texts, this can be
quite a bargain.

The daily late charge on an
overdue university library
book varies from coast to
coast. As befitting Canada’s
most economically
depressed region, the
schools in Atlantic Canada
tend to have the lowest late
charges. Dalhousie
University in Halifax, for
example, charges 25 cents
a day per late item.

Yet this amount, which may
seem paltry to students from
other parts of the
county, still manages to do

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year of studies at BCIT.

institution.

institution.

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6

Of Library L

_ the job and encourage the

return of books on time,
says Dalhousie
Sandra Dwyer.
“There’s been a_ better
return rate and things are
more available” since the
university started charging
late fines seven years ago,

‘she explains. Her testimony

supports the popular “fines-
as-deterrent-to-late-returns”
theory.

This theory also bears out
at the University of British
Columbia, where the iibrary
states that “fines are
charged for overdue materi-
als to encourage borrowers
to return items on time so
others can use them.”

And in the west, the stick
the librarians walk softly with
tends to be quite big. At
UBC and Simon Fraser
University, for example, stu-
dents are charged $1 a day
for overdue books.

BC Fe Y Bek OC

Scholarship Programs

To support and encourage students pursuing a post secondary education in
British Columbia, BC Hydro is awarding several scholarships in the following
areas:

University/BCIT Scholarship Program

Each year, forty-seven university students and six BCIT students are awarded
$1000 scholarships under this program. These students must have completed
their second year of studies, relevant to BC Hydro careers, at a university or first

Aboriginal Scholarship

A total of eight $1000 scholarships are offered annually throughout the province
to Aboriginal students who are currently in grade 12 and plan to enroll in post
secondary education or students who are already enrolled in a post secondary

L’Ecole Polytechnique Memorial Scholarship Program

In commemoration of the fourteen female engineering students murdered in
Montreal, fourteen scholarships of $1000 are offered to women planning to
enroll or enrolled in engineering and technological studies at a post secondary

Application forms are available at your school’s Financial Aid Office. For more
information please call (604) 623-3789.

The deadline for applications is January 14, 1997.

BC hydro 7

bee mE Se SSS SS SS SS SSS Se oe

librarian

ate Penalties

‘Is the west so flush with
cash that students can afford
such fines? It seemed so at
first, based on the fact that
the amount collected in fines
took a sudden jump after
SFU upped its fines to a
loonie a few years ago,
according to Rufus Polson,
who’s been a clerk at the
SFU library for the last nine
years.

This indicates an (initial) °
willingness to pay the higher
amount, a condition econo-
mists call price elasticity. Or
is it demand inelasticity?

“There used to be fewer stu-
dents and bigger budgets.
We could get away with [late
returns],” Polson _ says.
“[Then] budgets were cut,
and enrollment went up. We
had an availability problem.”

But it’s a problem that the
high fines now seem to be
solving. Over time, after the

Continued on Page 6

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