Last year, I noted a librar­ian who waives the fines of patrons who play DDR against her. This year, the Wadleigh Memo­r­ial Library makes it an offi­cial part of its Patron Appre­ci­a­tion Day.

Library Patrons Try to Dance Away Late Fees at Video Game Competition

“Library users with unpaid fines had a chance to redeem them­selves Thurs­day dur­ing the annual Patron Appre­ci­a­tion Day at the Wadleigh Memo­r­ial Library.

Instead of a scold­ing when they arrived, delin­quent patrons were received like party guests.

Patrons were invited to make good on unpaid fines by donat­ing canned and pack­aged foods for the local soup kitchen or by enter­ing a dance com­pe­ti­tion, ‘Dance Dance Revolution.’

To sweeten the pot, dur­ing most of the day the library served cof­fee, bagels, pas­tries and ice cream, donated by area businesses.…

The teen and pre­teen girls who showed up to play Dance Dance included 18-year-old Missy Hutchins, who owed $5 in fines, and Eli­cia Val­lier, 12, and Maria Roma­nenko, 11, who had no debts to pay.

Hutchins, who has been play­ing the video dance game for four years, includ­ing sev­eral as part of DDR club at Mil­ford High School, won her round against Spof­ford and hap­pily reported to the front desk with a coupon she used to pay off her $5 obligation.

The other girls took sec­ond turns com­pet­ing against the librar­ian, just for fun.

‘Video games are things kids like to do, and we thought this would bring them in to the library,’ Spof­ford said before the dance con­test began. ‘If they have fines, they don’t come in. We don’t want them to be afraid to come in.’ ” [Nashua Tele­graph, via joys­tiq, thanks James!]