Overdue library book returned from West Virginia to Massachusetts library over 119 years late
A book checked out of the library in New Bedford, Massachusetts was returned recently, more than 119 years after it was first checked out.
On Valentine’s Day 1904, an unidentified person took “An Elementary Treatise on Electricity,” by Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell, first published in 1881, out of the New Bedford Free Public Library — but never brought it back.
Over the ensuing century, the book eventually made its way into the collection of West Virginia University, where the curator of rare books noticed that while it was overdue, it had not been marked “withdrawn.”
This meant that the book, despite its tardiness, still belonged to the New Bedford library.
“This is a new one for me too. I told [them] I’d be happy to pack it up and send it back and that’s what I did,” curator Stewart Plein told WBOY-TV.
The book was still in good condition, indicating to New Bedford library staff that it had been kept as part of a family collection.
“This came back in extremely good condition. Someone obviously kept this on a nice bookshelf because it was in such good shape and probably got passed down in the family,” New Bedford Free Public Library Director Olivia Melo told the Associated Press Friday.
The library has a five-cents-a-day late fee — but it caps out at $2. If the cap was not in place, the return of the 19th-century guide to what was then the new science of electricity would have cost a person over $2,100.
