BURLINGTON — Take note: Not returning library books can be expensive and even land you in jail.

To recover long-overdue materials from library patrons who ignore requests to return them, the Burlington City Library has resorted to reporting the past-due items as stolen property.

The library loses about $1,500 per year in unreturned or lost material, about 6 percent of the yearly book budget — a large amount for a small library, said Janet Royer, circulation supervisor.

The cases turned over to the courts are against those individuals who do not respond to the library staff’s repeated attempts to contact them.

Reporting the books as stolen means that the court issues a summons. If the suspect library cardholder doesn’t show up in court, an arrest warrant can be issued.

“If people are pulled over for a traffic citation, and they have a (bench) warrant on their record, police will direct them to pay their fine. Usually they come right in and pay,” said Maggie Buckholz, library director.

“There have been cases in the past where people have been arrested on misdemeanor warrants,” said Burlington Police Chief Bill VanWieringen.

Libraries are public institutions and have a responsibility as stewards of public funds to claim overdue materials, Buckholz said.

She said that if people talk to library staff about problems — before they are forced to claim items as stolen — library staff members are understanding.

“We are very much a customer service organization. We will work with them,” she said.

Typically the courts only send summons to those with high-value library material, Royer said.

The Burlington library has a 75-book checkout limit and a limit of five DVDs.

“If someone checks out a few $30 DVDs, a couple $25 best-selling books, and a high-value reference book, it adds up quickly,” Buckholz said.

Reclaiming books is a problem for all libraries. However there are different methods of recovery.

“Instead of going through the courts, some libraries may go through outside collection agencies,” Buckholz said.

The Mount Vernon City Library is one that uses an agency to reclaim lost books.

With a $92,500 annual book budget, the Mount Vernon library is the largest in the county, said library Director Brian Soneda.

“We aren’t losing things left and right ... we have a low loss rate,” he said.

For the material that is lost, he uses a company called Unique Management Systems or UMS, which uses what it calls a “gentle nudge” program. After the library deems material lost, it sends the cardholder information to UMS.

UMS sends a few letters, and if there is no response, makes a “friendly” phone call. That usually results in materials being returned or paid for, according to the company Web site.

If the phone call does not work, another series of letters and phone calls ensues.

The last resort is to affect the cardholder’s credit rating, according to the Web site.

“The program returns books to us at a satisfactory rate,” Soneda said. “I like that it takes the ‘bad guy’ part and gives it to someone else.”

Buckholz said that the Burlington library would rather have material returned instead of fines paid because replacing older books is more expensive.

“We want people to take stuff; they just need to return it also,” she said.

• Keith Chaplin can be reached at 360-416-2148 or