Scottish library book missing for 32 years turns up 450 miles away
Staff at the library in England were surprised to see the book from Perth in their donation box
A Scottish library is set to have a lost book returned 30 years late after it turned up at a library 450 miles away.
Staff at the Ipswich Institute in England were surprised to find a copy of ‘Pigeon Pie’ by Nancy Mitford in their donation box earlier this week - they were even more surprised to see it had been checked out of the former Perth and Kinross District Library in October 1994 and never returned.
“We were going through our donation box when we found this book had made it all the way from Scotland to Suffolk,” said Jenny Hutchinson, who runs membership and marketing at the Ipswich Institute.
“It has happened before, but it is normally much more local than that.
"It could have been that someone moved house and forgot about it and it then became too difficult to return, or maybe it ended up in a jumble sale or someone lost it on holiday.”
Ms Hutchinson said staff do not know who left the book in their donation box, so there is no trace of how the book ended up in the south of England.
The team immediately contacted Culture Perth and Kinross, which runs the libraries in Perthshire, and have arranged to have the book packaged up and sent back to its rightful owner.
Ms Hutchinson said: “We really wanted to make contact and see if it could get back home, seeing as it still had a library ticket on it.
“It’s been nice to get a social connection with another library that’s so far away.”
David McLeod, marketing officer at Culture Perth and Kinross, said he now expects the Nancy Mitford book to be back at the library by the end of the week.
However he joked that staff are trawling through their records to see if they can track down the culprit who misplaced the book 32 years ago.
Speaking to The Scotsman, he said: “I spoke to the library down south this morning and they’ve already packed up the book to send it back to us, which is really nice considering it is at the other end of the country.
“The system that would have been used at the time is no longer in use and the book is not listed in our catalogue anymore so there is probably no record of who had it, but my colleagues are looking to see if they can find who took it out in 1994 and didn’t bring it back!
“This does happen on occasion, but it is unusual to see something from the other end of the UK.
“It could have been on someone’s shelf and then they moved away - we won’t know until we see in the records who had it.
“But the book looks like it is in reasonably good nick in the photographs and we are getting it back at the end of the week.”
Mr McLeod said the librarians in Perth will decide whether or not to put the book back on the shelf for circulation when it arrives at the end of the week.
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