The Niles District Library charges 15 cents a day for overdue books. They recently had a book returned that would generate thousands of dollars in fees but they won’t be looking to charge anyone.
Library Administrative Manager Nichole Martin says staff were recently surprised when the circulation manager announced an unusual mail delivery had come in.
”He goes, you guys are going to want to see this, and we’re all sort of shocked, especially because of the distance it’s traveled and then also a little bit at the age of the book,” Martin says.
The envelope was postmarked from Scotland, and it contained a copy of the 1967 book, “The Groucho Letters” by famed comedian Groucho Marx. Someone had checked it out when the library was called the Niles Public Library, a name it stopped using in 1973.
It also included a handwritten letter from a former librarian in Scotland who said she found the book in a bookstore on the Calzean Estate, a castle that’s now a tourist attraction.
Library Adult Services Team Leader Crystal Gleason says they plan to display the book for a bit before selling it in the library’s next book sale. Gleason says they also plan to send that former librarian in Scotland a thank-you letter.
“We have some Friends of the Library postcards with pictures of the library on them so we’re going to use that to send that back to her, so she gets a little bit more history about our library too.”
