It’s important to return the things you borrow in a timely manner. Other people want to borrow it, and it’s less work for the folks who have to take care of it. Of course sometimes, for malicious reasons or just general absentmindedness, things slip through the cracks. One little library book from a high school library in Vermont slipped so far, it took two decades to get back.
The school year just started at Mount Mansfield Union High in Vermont, and the librarian, Faith Carpenter, was behind the desk, doing what a librarian does. A new student to the school entered the library and struck up a brief conversation with Carpenter, before opening his backpack and pulling out a book. He handed her the book, it’s pages yellow as a ripe banana, and said it belonged to the school.
It was a copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Carpenter didn’t recognize it. With a bit of research and card cataloging, she found this mysterious book’s origin: this copy had been borrowed from the library almost 20 years ago by none other than the student’s father during his own time as a student.
This particular library doesn’t charge late fees, with the staff saying they’d rather have the book than the money. Still, just for giggles, I ran the numbers with a typical library late fee of ten cents every day for 20 years. If the library charged fees, the student would owe $730. Must’ve been a really good copy of Frankenstein.
By: Daniel Trock
