Have you ever borrowed a book and forgotten to return it on time? You can hardly top this rental period.
The scientific work “An Elementary Treatise on Electricity” was checked out from a library on February 14, 1904 – and only now returned, according to the Associated Press (AP) news agency. The New Bedford Free Public Library in Massachusetts, USA, had to wait 119 years for the book.
Book was accidentally discovered after 119 years
The library owes the return of the work to a fortunate coincidence. Stewart Plein, curator of rare books at West Virginia University Libraries, received a book donation and discovered the ancient book.
He noted that the paper was part of the New Bedford Library collection and was not stamped “withdrawn.” This indicated that while the book was many years overdue, it had not been removed from the library collection either. Plein therefore turned to the library and gave the old book to the staff.
119 year old book in “extremely good condition”
Library director Olivia Melo was delighted with the work’s return: “The book came back in extremely good condition,” she told the AP. “Someone obviously kept this on a nice bookshelf because it was in such good condition and was probably passed down in the family.” The book was first published in 1881, but the recovered copy is not a rare edition, as Melo explains.
By the way, 119 years of lending time is a record, according to Melo: books that are 10 or 15 years overdue are occasionally returned, but more than 100 years have not yet passed. The library currently charges a fee of five cents per day – for 119 years that would be the equivalent of almost 2,000 euros. But the maximum late fee is two US dollars (about 1.90 euros).
2023-07-09 08:29:54
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