Better late than never. That’s the phrase being repeated over and over at the St. Albert Public Library after an overdue book was returned just before the end of 2015. It was way overdue.
It was due in 1977, making it late to come back by a full 38 years.
Customer services manager Kathleen Troppmann received the book from an anonymous man.
“He just said, ‘I was cleaning out my mom’s house in Edmonton. We moved from St. Albert to Edmonton in October of ’77. I see this book was due in November. I was cleaning out her house and found it so I brought it back.’ That was it!”
The name of the borrower was not within the library’s records. The old card catalogue system was switched over to computer records in 1987.
The library’s current fee structure would charge the book at a rate of 15c/day. That would have brought the total late fee up to approximately $2,000 if it weren’t for the maximum charge limit of $5.
Although the St. Albert Public Library doesn’t have an official amnesty program, the charge was waived in this instance.
“That would be a little ridiculous. When a book is that old, I’m certainly not going to charge people overdue fees for it,” she added, noting that titles are written off as lost after a period of time.
The slip card was stamped with the due date of Nov. 25, 1977. The book, Anne’s House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery (the fifth of the nine titles in the Anne of Green Gables series) was originally published in 1917. This copy was in circulation for three years and had been enjoyed 10 times previously before that fateful eleventh borrow.
Whoever the forgetful former patron was still took decent care of the item. Troppmann said it was pretty good but “a little mud-splattered.”
Incredibly late returns such as this are not common. In the three years that she’s been at her post, it only happens about once a year.
“We had another one that was really late returned awhile ago. I think it was Pearl S. Buck’s The Chinese Children Next Door from 1967. It was returned last year sometime.”
Both of those books didn’t make it back into circulation, however. Troppmann indicated that there is already a copy of the same Anne of Green Gables title among the 185,000-plus items in circulation.
Rather, she has a little display shelf behind the scenes where they are kept for the library’s own historical purposes. It’s not because she’s sentimental, she promised, but rather because the books just aren’t suitable for reuse.
“They’re much loved,” she noted, emphasizing that the condition of the books is not approved. “Those are the only two that I’ve kept. There was another one … it was too well loved. It was gross.”
