Patron returns book to Finnish library - 100 years overdue

HELSINKI

A patron has returned a book to a Finnish town library - more than a century after it was due, the library said Wednesday.

An unknown visitor to the library in Vantaa, near the capital Helsinki, has returned a book printed in 1902. A label inside it indicated it was loaned at the beginning of the last century, the Korso library said.

“We don’t have records of loans that old. The oldest ones we have are from the beginning of the 1950s,” the head of the Korso library Anna-Mari Rantala told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The book was a 400-page collection of religious monthly periodicals called Vartija (Guardian).

The library said the visitor wanted to remain unknown to avoid the late-return fee which, according to a note attached to the book, would have been 10 pennies a week.

“There is also another possibility. Maybe the book was so dull that it took 100 years to read it,” Rantala said.

The news emerged when the library published it on its web site at the recommendation of one of the librarians.

The book has been returned to the library’s collections and now nobody can borrow it. For at least another 100 years, that is.

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