"You must return the book. That 25-cent charge is not a rental fee but a goad to return it promptly. As you note, other people are waiting for the book, hence the library’s decision not to let you renew it. That the fee is inadequate to provide a proper incentive, that the library does not instead charge $25 a day or $250 a day or impose a vigorous flogging (as described in the no-doubt-renewable “Mutiny on the Bounty”), bespeaks ineffectual enforcement tactics, not the freedom to keep a popular book past its due date."--Randy Cohen, the New York Times'
Ethicist