Overdue By Decades: A Rented Book Returns To Lake Elmo Library 47 Years Later

By Marielle Mohs, CBS Minnesota

November 29, 2022

A library book finally made its way back home to the Lake Elmo branch of the Washington County Library after 47 years of being rented out.

Karen Rodricks is a library services supervisor at the Lake Elmo branch. She opened a package that arrived on her desk earlier this month to find "The Chilton Foreign Car Repair Manual" from the 1970s that her branch used to rent out.

Inside the front cover there was a handwritten note that said:

In the mid 1970s, I was living in Lake Elmo and working on an old Mercedes Benz. I took out this book for reference. A few months later, I moved and apparently the book got packed up in the move. 47 years later, I found it in a trunk with other interesting things from the 1970s. It's a little overdue, but I thought you might want it back. My apologies to anyone in Lake Elmo who was working on an old Benz in the last 47 years. I probably can't afford the overdue charge, but I will send you enough for another book.

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