And the library will promptly discard the book for being racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic not to mention misogynistic...sarc
I submit that Mr Short is well beyond luck if he received his library card in 1904. An ill considered quip.
For just $10 the library probably won't try to locate any descendants and try to get them to pay.
Got Al Bundy beat....
I went to the library to let them know and they told me I could either bring them another copy (i.e. buy one at a bookstore) or pay the price that was printed on the jacket sleeve, which was $17.95. I guess they take note of these things for their files.
Anyway, I elected to pay them the $17.95.
When I packed again for my next trip, guess what? The book I thought I left in the hotel was in a compartment of my luggage that I did not check when I was unpacking.
So now I have a library book that I own legally, I guess. But if I ever die, one of my children will probably think it belongs to the libary and will bring it back to them.
I hope they don't get hit with a bunch of fees when that happens. I wonder if I should update my will to reflect that that library book has already been paid for.
I guess people don’t realize that the book’s records were removed from the library probably 110 years ago?
Assuming the library even wanted the book back at this point
This is a splendid book, beautifully written, with a strong nautical background. The hero's family, which had a very long nautical tradition, was a bit short of money. But there was a story told in the family that some centuries before an ancestor of his had found an abandoned vessel which turned out to have a huge amount of gold and jewels. He had buried this in a secret location on an island in the Far East, putting directions for finding it in cipher somewhere in his house in England. Our hero finds the paper with the cipher after a long search in the house, and sets off to find the fortune, though he had not yet deciphered the instructions.
All sorts of adventures occur, including being attacked by pirates, whom they get rid of in a most novel manner. Eventually our hero seems to work out how to read the cipher, in a dream, but when he awakes he can't remember how to do it. He does of course remember, and the cipher turns out to be easy to read, once you realise how many digits you need to get each character. They get there, and sure enough, find the treasure. But of course the troubles don't end there, because some of the seamen think it would be a good idea to kill our hero, and take the treasure for themselves. That situation gets sorted out, and after further adventures they get home. They use a novel method of getting the treasure ashore without anybody in authority noticing.
Harry Collingwood (1851-1922). Pseudonym of William Joseph Cosens Lancaster, a civil engineer who specialised in seas and harbours.
Looks like Mr Collingwood wrote 34 published book in his time.
I wouldn’t want to be Horace.
Mr. Short is dead. He’s not paying even if they want him to.
Also, do we know when he died? If he checked it out when he was a boy, maybe he was struck and killed by a horseless carriage soon after.
libraries get rid of books all the time...and they’re old ones...
Pingy...
My how time flies like an arrow-
However, Fruit flies like a Banana
Long overdue book returned to Carbondale Public Library"Keep your card in this pocket" (link to big image from the library's FB page)Library employees were shocked when a book was returned after it was signed out about 120 years ago.
Good for two years from Day 23, 1904 if not cancelled or surrendered earlier.
Day 23? On the one hand, January 23rd...
On the other, Simchat Torah.
Bere-sheeth...
And it came to pass...
I'd already been to Carbondale PA on street view when this story first surfaced. Naturally a number of names involve coal over there.
There's even a *modern* Anthracite Hotel in the center of town, next to the convenience store named for the area code (570).
The sign out front indicates that its restaurant is named... Kol.
Could be important.. naaaah, it's like the midrash about little Moses taking Pharaoh's crown off of his head. Explained the speech impediment.
Shiny gold, hot coals -- he wouldn't know any different. Bright baubles... all the same.
...קול, כל
Hotel Anthracite is a modern hotel with a strong connection to the Coal Mining heritage of Carbondale.