A New Hampshire man just ended a library loan that began before World War I, women's suffrage, and the invention of the toaster. John Hanson recently walked into the Concord Public Library with a battered, tape-bound copy of The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine from September 1894—stamped "may be kept for one week," the Concord Monitor reports. It had been out for roughly 132 years, or 48,220 days. The potential fine: more than $12,000, though the library's yearlong pause on late fees meant he owed nothing, and they wouldn't have charged him anyway.
Hanson, 84, says he doesn't know how the magazine ended up in his possession. He says he first found it during a move in 1966. His parents, he says, didn't have Concord Public Library cards, but he doesn't know about his grandparents. He tells NBC News that when he saw the library had a "fine freeze," he said to himself, "Boy, this would be a good time to bring it back." Archivist Jennifer Needham was at the circulation desk when Hanson returned the magazine. She says that when he told her he probably had the library's most overdue item, she thought he was talking about a book from the 1980s at the earliest.
Needham confirmed it had never been returned nor deaccessioned from the library's collection, the Monitor reports. "I am just so curious," she says. "Like someone obviously checked this out, and why didn't they bring it back, or did they lose it and then they were ashamed and were afraid to bring it back?" The magazine, which contains a mix of news, essays, and poetry typical of the era's publications, isn't going back into circulation. The library plans to keep the inch-thick, crayon-marked volume on display in its Concord Room.
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