When a book gets returned after a century, the librarians in Northern California were left speechless by the historic copy. An edition of “A History of the United States” by Benson Lossing was checked out in 1927 and it returned back to the shelves after 96 years.
Even though the book may be falling apart and in poor condition, the copy still survived over the years. Turns out, the book is older than the library itself. The book was available to people in 1892 when the library was run on a subscription service and customers had to pay 25 cents a month to check out books. It wasn’t until 1927 that the library went public.
“Almost 100 years since it was, we assume, in the building. So, we just would love to know where it’s been,” said Chris Kreiden, the library’s director.
“One of my staff members… came up and said somebody had returned that book, and they thought it was really cool. It was a really old book, and we didn’t realize quite how old it was. It’s falling apart,” she added.
“All of us are just wondering where the book could have been for so long from checked out in 1927. Actually, none of us have seen a library book that was checked out in 1892 or anything else, and to have it be from this library from that far back is really incredible,” Kreiden said.
The person who returned the book didn’t give the curious librarians any explanation for the late return. His identity remains a mystery and the staff remain clueless about where the book has been prior to its return to the library.
“The gentleman just said something about his father but didn’t catch anything else. He didn’t give his name. It wasn’t somebody that she recognized. Other staff have no idea who this gentleman is. So, we’d love to find out more about the story,” Kreiden said.
The library estimated the book’s late fees to be more than $1,700 but they have waived the high fee. “It would have been a lot, but I don’t think that we would have charged that much at any point,” Kreiden said.
The book is back where it belongs and it sits on the shelves as one of the library’s dated treasures.