The Concord Public Library had quite a surprise from a patron who discovered a long-overdue magazine.
Typically, overdue books or magazines may be a few days or weeks late. Sometimes they are months or even years late. Rarely are they more than a century late.
John Hanson, of Barrington, New Hampshire, recently returned a publication checked out 132 years ago.
It was a copy of The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, published in September 1894.
When it was checked out, it was supposed to be for only a week. But the week stretched into weeks, months, and eventually years, NBC News reported.
Hanson found it when he moved in 1966. But the 84-year-old has no idea how he got it. His parents didn’t have library cards for the Concord institution.
He said his late wife Carol was a huge reader and frequently went to that library, but she would never have checked something out for so long.
“So I don’t know if it’s something that I got as a gift that was given to me. Or did I pick this up from a pile of free books on the side of the road to read? I honestly don’t know,” Hanson told NBC News.
The magazine was 48,220 days overdue, which could have cost him $12,055 in fines. But luckily, the Concord Public Library was in the middle of a “fine freeze,” which paused fines for late returns.
Jennifer Needham, the library’s archivist and outreach coordinator, was working when Hanson brought the magazine back.
“‘I have a book to return, and I bet you haven’t seen anything like this,’” Needham said Hanson told her. “I honestly thought it was going to be from the 1980s, ’90s or 2000s. But then he pulled this out, and I was like, ‘Ooo, tell me more!’”
According to the library’s Facebook post, now that the magazine is back in the collection, it won’t be placed back into circulation.
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