FORT COLLINS, Colo. — In the year 1919, there were 48 states, Woodrow Wilson was president, the 18th Amendment of prohibition was ratified, and a classic book set in 12th-century England was checked out of a northern Colorado library.
In the year 2024, there are 50 states, Joe Biden is president, prohibition was repealed nearly a century ago, and the classic book set in 12th-century England has been returned.
Poudre Libraries blogged about the book's return. The library said the book, "Ivanhoe" by Sir Walter Scott, was supposed to have been returned by Feb. 13, 1919, according to the book's due date slip.
“It’s amazing. We’re thrilled that people would think to bring it back. And it makes for a wonderful story, kind of a timelessness of books, right?,” said Annaclaire Crumpton, digital communications specialist for Poudre Libraries. “There’s an employee who worked here for over 50 years and she’s able to kind of trace what our tracking system used to be to figure out a little bit of its history.”
Crumpton said in February, 105 years to the day after the book was due, someone stopped by to return it. The library shared this story to celebrate National Library Week this April.
“It came to us from an unnamed woman, [to whom] it was passed along from her brother, who found it in their mom’s belongings in Kansas,” she explained.
“It gets checked in, brought to someone at [front desk] desk, goes through the admin system. Ok, there’s this ancient book with this tag, ‘Fort Collins Free Public Library’ inside.”
The book was originally borrowed from an older library system, and – likely – from an entirely different building. Crumpton said the old building now sits behind the current library and is under renovation.
Inside the book's cover were the library's lending rules, including fine amounts if the book was returned late. It read, “A fine of two cents per day shall be collected on all books. If a messenger be sent for a detained book an additional charge of 25 cents shall be collected.”
According to math, the fines for the overdue book would be around $760 by now. Adjusted for inflation, that'd roughly be $14,000, the library said. Luckily for the woman who returned the book, Poudre Libraries stopped charging for overdue books in 2020.
“We don’t do fines anymore, we’re fine-free,” Crumpton said. “So obviously it’s not applicable to the person who returned this book, but that’s a lot of money, right?”
The book had been checked out three times before its 1919 loaning.
While the copy is still in decent shape, it’s been well-loved through the years. Poudre Libraries has several newer copies of “Ivanhoe” in circulation and does not plan to put the old copy back onto the shelves for readers to borrow. Instead, they plan to either donate it to a local museum or, perhaps, display the book somewhere in the library.
“It doesn’t matter how many decades or centuries pass, it can still be relevant to the right reader looking for something,” Crumpton said.
“Absolutely we celebrate the magic of books and it’s even more magic when its more than 100 years old. We’re surrounded by them all the time. And they are very precious.”
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