The Dallas Public Library doesn’t want to charge late fees anymore.

Jo Giudice, the library’s director, told the City Council’s Quality of Life committee on Monday that she wants Dallas to take a more forgiving approach and eliminate the current fine structure that charges account holders between 30 cents and $1 each day an item is overdue.

Instead, Giudice wants to move to a fine-free approach, a step that many large library systems around the United States have taken — with surprisingly positive results.

While some council members weren’t thrilled with the idea, Giudice said the change would help improve equity in the city.

Nearly half of the system’s 650,000 account holders are currently blocked from checking out another item — a status they reached after they accrued $5 or more in fines. And that number is higher at branches in Dallas’ poorest neighborhoods.

Library fines can be the biggest barrier for access for Dallas residents living at or below the poverty line. And they are people who could benefit from access to the library’s materials, she said.

“We are not giving them any incentive to return to use our resources, no matter how much it would help,” Giudice said.

The library would still ask patrons to return items on time, and would charge users a replacement and processing fee if a past-due item went past a certain threshold, she said.

But Giudice and her staff are contemplating how to make that process less painful for residents. She said officials are considering instituting “grace days” a few times a year — where those with missing or lost books can eliminate their fees by participating in a reading program or a canned food drive.

Giudice said Dallas would follow several library systems that switched to a fine-free approach in recent years. She said some other cities — such as Plano and Salt Lake City — that did away with fines saw a decrease in the amount of overdue material and an increase in library participation.

Council member Omar Narvaez, who represents West Dallas and part of Northwest Dallas, said he was “very excited” about the possibility of doing away with the fines.

“This is an equity issue,” he said. “For [some], the library is sometimes the only place they can go for some type of entertainment.”

But outgoing council members Sandy Greyson and Rickey Callahan both expressed skepticism about the plan, saying that a fine-free approach seemed to abdicate users’ personal responsibility to get items back on time.

“I believe in personal responsibly to the max,” Callahan said, adding that it “sends a bad message to the kiddos.”

“I’m sorry; we’re not Plano,” he said.

Giudice said she believed that library staff could “teach responsibility at the time of check-out,” and that the system didn’t need to be punitive with a fine.

In the end, only Callahan voted against passing the measure out of committee. The full council will vote on the item in the coming weeks.