Have you ever handed in a library book late? Have you ever kept one so long that the “shame spiral” crept in?
Well, at least you haven’t kept a library book out for nearly 120 years… probably. Just this year, the New Bedford Free Public Library in Massachusetts received a book that had been checked out about that many years before.
It was James Clerk Maxwell’s “An Elementary Treatise on Electricity” … and it is not the only library book that’s been returned after decades. This tale made the team at “Something Offbeat” curious about library books, late returns and more.
So, we reached out to Caroline Land, manager of the Edmonton Public Library in Canada, and the host of the “Overdue Finds” podcast.
“It just kind of snowballs,” she said about the overdue book shame. “And this idea that… you’ve done something wrong or that you've harmed the library or embarrassed about it, and then you just kind of avoid it.”
However, Land said that librarians are much more interested in people using libraries than avoiding them. To learn more about overdue books and late return offenders, including President George Washington, listen to the episode here.
Each week, “Something Offbeat” takes a deeper look at an unusual headline. If you have suggestions for stories the podcast should cover, send them to us at somethingoffbeat@audacy.com.
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