The City Library's new fee schedule, which was approved by the Aachen City Council in October, will come into force on January 1, 2025.

The City Library's fee schedule was last changed on April 1, 2020 with the introduction of the self-checkout system. At that time, a graduated annual fee was introduced instead of the previous fee per borrowing process. Since then, the regular fee for borrowing has been 15 euros. Anyone entitled to a discount previously paid eight euros per year. From January, these fees will be set at 20 and ten euros respectively.

The services remain free for children and young people under the age of 18. By expanding the group of users entitled to a discount to include people aged 65 and over, low-threshold use of the library services is ensured. Charges for overdue loans will be increased from 1.25 to two euros per item, while fees for the use of special technical devices such as e-books, reservations and comparatively staff-intensive processing services will be waived.

In a comparison of 100 institutions in the largest cities in Germany, the rates charged by Aachen City Library last year ranked in one of the lowest positions, in 85th place. In the ranking of 35 institutions in North Rhine-Westphalia, Aachen is only in 30th place.

In recent years, considerable efforts have been made to expand and modernize the library's portfolio. For example, the first floor of the Central Library has been open every first Sunday of the month from 1 to 5 p.m. since last summer. A self-service Open Library is available in the Talstraße depot, streaming platforms such as "filmfriend" supplement the digital media selection and users can use the so-called Hömmelethek in the Central Library to borrow musical instruments, hand puppets or sports equipment, as well as a seed library. The new digital management program enables convenient media searches and additional customer-friendly usage options.

In 2023, the library had 9194 paying visitors with user cards, of which around 600 were over 65 and 2,829 were entitled to a discount. This generated income of 118,107 euros. With the new regulation, the revenue would increase by 31,483 to 149,590 euros, according to the administration in the corresponding council bill.