Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Tales From the "Liberry"

Bookmarks You Don't Want to Lose!

A regular patron of ours returned Dan Brown's Angels & Demons to us last Wednesday. She slid it across the circulation desk to me and then walked away to find something new. I was about to turn the book around to better reach its barcode when I noticed something green sticking out of the top of its pages.

"Um... you do realize you left a $20 as a bookmark in here, right?" I asked.

Our patron spun around, looked shocked, then came back to the circulation desk where I was pointing to the $20. The bill was only just barely visible as a $20. If it had been stuck any further down I would have missed it entirely. The patron took the book, removed her money and then began flipping rapidly through the pages in case she'd stashed any more cash in there.

"Oh, my gosh! I can't believe I did that. You're so honest to point that out."

Well, sure. If I left a $20 in a book, I'd want someone to point it out too. Besides, I didn't actually know that she hadn't meant to leave it in there as either a donation or for unpaid fines or what. I just wanted to clarify if she had meant to leave it there and what I was supposed to do with it if she had. No worries.

That, however, is not the worst thing that I've heard of being left in a book as a bookmark at this branch. This will sound like an urban legend, but Mrs. C said it actually happened to her.

Mrs. C said that several years ago another regular female patron came in and asked if we had any handbooks on getting a divorce. It seems the patron and her husband were going through some rocky times and it looked as though it wasn't going to work out, so she wanted to get her ducks in a row as far as what she needed to do should it come to divorce. Mrs. C looked up one of our divorce guides and sent the patron upstairs to find it. The woman did find it, but came back down looking pale and disturbed. Mrs. C said the patron came to the desk and laid a piece of paper out for her to see, saying that she'd found it in the book. It was one of her husband's credit card receipts. It seemed the two of them were on the same page, so to speak.

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2 comments:

Jim Wetzel said...

Weird stuff.

I try to always have a book with me for when I get lunch out ... I can hardly eat without reading. So I usually use my Subway receipt or a straw wrapper for a bookmark. That won't entertain anybody. Maybe we should all start using a business card for a bookmark. We'd be leaving our "sign" around the literary neighborhood ... like the dog lifting the leg when passing a fire hydrant.

Unknown said...

Nice blog! Keep it up!
Very good name...
The "next blog" blog...
I use to click it compulsively too...

Bye.

Alex from Italy