BLOOMINGTON - For those who checked out a book from the Bloomington Public Library and never bothered to return it, now is the time to find it and return it.

Overdue book fines will be forgiven by the library throughout the month of September.

But come October 1, if the library still does not have its overdue or lost material the account will be turned over to a collection agency.

Roughly five percent of the library's collection is overdue or assumed lost, said library spokeswoman Rhonda Massie. That's about 13,000 pieces of material such as books, DVDs and CDs.

"We just want our overdue materials back," Massie said. "We are here to be a resource to the community and if those materials are not returned then others don't have the opportunity to use them."

There are no limits on the amount of the library's materials being returned, Massie said.

"We are encouraging people to come to the circulation desk for returns so they have a receipt but we will take the materials, no questions asked," she added.

If the materials are lost, library customers will only have to pay the cost to replace the item if the bill is pain for in September. All overdue fines and re-shelving fees will be waived.

The only overdue fees the library cannot waive are for books or materials checked out through interlibrary loans. Those are overdue fees owed to a different library, Massie said.

Customers who go to collection will not only be charged a replacement cost, overdue fines and re-shelving fees, but a $10 charge will be added to each bill to cover the library's cost to hire the collection agency, Unique Management Services.