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.

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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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_ 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.

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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

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