Cambridge students received £98,478 in library fines across all University libraries for the academic year 2016/17, new data has revealed.

The sum places Cambridge third nationally, behind Oxford and King’s College, London, both of which handed out fines of more than £100,000 each. Oxford’s fines totalled £167,689.

The findings, which come courtesy of freedom of information requests submitted by the i newspaper, show that universities across the country received more than £3.5 million from library fines.

Alongside the central University Library, the University manages a further twenty-one affiliate libraries associated with the UL, including faculty libraries such as the Squire Law Library and the Seeley Historical Library.

Fine policies differ across each library, with fines varying between 25p and £1 for each working day for overdue books. Notably, the Seeley charges 25p per hour for overdue special subject material, such as primary sources, which can only be borrowed from 2:30pm until 10.30am the next day.

According to the Seeley Historical Library website: “Fines still outstanding at graduation will be treated as debts to the University and affect the award of a degree.” This means that students may even be unable to graduate until they pay off their library fines