(NewsReady.com) – It’s not particularly uncommon to keep library books out past their due dates. Many of the institutions have fines to discourage it because it’s an issue. However, a California library book was recently returned, and it was years late.
According to a local news report, a patron returned a book to the Saint Helena Library in Napa Valley 96 years after someone checked it out. Chris Kreiden, the director of the library, said it’s 141 years old.
Kreiden explained that the book was in really bad shape. It was falling apart and no longer has a spine. She said it was originally checked out in 1927. The book, which was published in 1892, is actually older than the library. Back in those days, the library was a subscription service.
In early May, resident Jim Perry returned the book that had been passed down by his wife’s late grandfather. After returning it, he went out of town and saw reports about it on the news. He told ABC News that it had been in his family for about five generations, and he decided to take it back to the library because he saw a stamp indicating it belonged there.
This isn’t the only case of books being way overdue. In 2009, someone returned one to the Washington and Lee University Library in Lexington, Virginia, 145 years after a Union soldier stole it during the Civil War. A man named C.S. Gates took the book on June 11, 1864, when soldiers ransacked the building.
The soldier then wrote a note and left it inside the copy of “History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France.”
In April 2023, someone returned a book called “Back to Basics” more than 40 years after it was checked out. Officials at the Mercer County Library System in New Jersey said it was in a box of donations.
Andrea Merrick, a branch manager at the library, said that they intended to keep it for a while and use it in displays.
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