I had two library books that had been lost; very difficult to locate among my own books. While cleaning out my bookshelves at home, I found one of them. It is white, very thin (think slender volume of verse) and lacking any print or image on spine or cover. It was at the very bottom right hand side of a bookshelf that I had searched before. I brought it back to the library and they are going to give me my $75 replacement fee back.
Today, I came into the office on campus, and vowed to find the other one. I did, in about 10 minutes, simply by looking through my main collection of Spanish poetry. It was easy for it to hide from me here, because, as I've always said, the most difficult thing is not finding a needle in a haystack, but finding a piece of hay in a haystack. I mean, one specific piece of hay. It is easy to find a piece of hay, but not to find the very one you are looking for.
4 comments:
Glad you found it. My way to do this is to go along the shelf and physically pick up each book, since it's easy to miss one (especially if it's a thin book, like yours).
I've done (I thought!) this but still missed those two books, somehow.
Speaking as a librarian, this is money we love to return.
I also decided to return every single library book in my possession, even if I need to re-check some out. The last four were difficult to find. Two had fallen down on the side of my desk. One was in my car. One was on the floor of my office half hidden by a drum.
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