I swung by the public library today to pay a $1.25 fine. Offhand I asked the librarian what the biggest fine she'd ever encountered was, and she leaned forward and whispered, "$1,000." What she told me was that someone simply came in and paid $1,000 rather than returning their checked out books. I suppose some people have never heard of used book stores! But, the librarian continued that enormous fines were not that out of the ordinary, and that one collection agency specializes in library accounts. Finally, she explained one point of interest to me: a disproportionate of the very high fines are accrued by first time library users! She explained that many individuals got so excited about getting a library card that they checked out dozens of books...and they never returned because their initial literary enthusiasm would abate and they couldn't be bothered to return to the library to drop off their books.
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The journalist George Szamuely* amassed library fines of $31,000 for 570 overdue books checked out from NYU libraries. (Amusingly if you google this topic you get a NYTimes article about it by Jayson Blair.)
http://www.ala.org/al_onlineTemplate.cfm?Section=october1999&Template=/…
*some claim he worked for a time as ghostwriter for Taki, until they had a falling out over pay, but I wouldn't know.
As a library worker myself, I can assure you that the same phenomenon occurs over here in the UK. Main difference is, we aren't legally allowed to send the debt reclaimers after them. I could whinge on about this topic for hours, but I won't, because library staff are thought of as being boring enough already...