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Librarians find all kinds of stuff left between the pages

Funny things left inside returned library books

By LATASHA JAMES

Date published: 8/1/2004

EOPLE USE the strangest things as bookmarks.

From Popsicle sticks to report cards to marriage certificates, librarians have seen it all.

Pressed flowers.

Movie tickets.

Money.

Love letters.

All lurking in the folds of returned library books.

The most common bookmark substitutes are photos and transportation tickets, said Margaret Beattie, headquarters manager of Central Rappahannock Regional Library in Fredericksburg.

"We find train tickets and boarding passes because people like to read and pass the time while traveling," she said.

Just last week, librarians found a prepaid Verizon phone card and a baptism certificate.

Nancy Shea, who isn't afraid to use a hair scrunchie as a bookmark, said she uses just about anything to mark her pages.

"I've used those little cards that slip out of magazines," the Stafford County resident said. "And I've also used leaves before. I use whatever's handy."

Christa Baxter of Fredericksburg said she uses a nail file.

"I do it all the time. I also use shopping lists and tour admission tickets," she said.

Normally, if the forgotten items are valuable, librarians will return them to the owner by looking up the address of the person who last borrowed the book, Beattie said.

"We try and return them, unless it's been a long time. I wouldn't want to return an income-tax form to an address where someone no longer lives," she said.

According to area librarians, a lot of people still use actual bookmarks. Readers left so many bookmarks one year, the librarians decorated a Christmas tree with them.

So, whatever happened to the ever popular dog-ear? Wouldn't it be easier to fold the page instead of reaching for a supermarket receipt?

"I get on my husband about dog-earring. If everybody did that, the whole book would have folded pages," Shea said as she balanced books in her hand at the Porter Library.

Robert Davezac confesses to folding page corners, but he said he uses playing cards to mark his place when he can.

"I have a bad habit of dog-earring. I know you're not supposed to do it, but when you're lying in bed reading, you don't want to reach over to get anything," the 18-year-old said.

Davezac, also of Stafford County, works at the headquarters library restocking bookshelves.

Occasionally, the librarians said they also find things like bugs or fingernail clippings. In one incidence, remnants of fried eggs were spotted in a book, Beattie said.

"If someone's reading at the dinner table, then food [might] get in there," Beattie said. "It's mostly because they are cooking or eating."

Beattie said the librarians get a kick out of finding keepsakes and other items in the more than 6 million items loaned out by the regional library each year.

"We think it's really interesting to find what people leave in books," she said. "And it lightens the mood in a very, very busy department."

To reach LATASHA JAMES: 540/374-5000, ext. 5779

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Date published: 8/1/2004