The things people use as bookmarks

By MIKE HARDEN
Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Any librarian who has pulled a tour of duty on the circulation desk of a public library has a few tales to tell about the curious objects people use, and then forget to remove, as bookmarks.

"People leave photos, Social Security cards and driver's licenses," said Kate Porter, assistant director of the Upper Arlington (Ohio) Public Library, "gum in wrappers, letters that need to be mailed, prescriptions, airline tickets - some that are unused and some that are used - ponytail holders, fines that they owe the library."

"We've seen a condom as a bookmark," said Vi Yarman, head of circulation of the public library in Mount Vernon, Ohio. "It was not used. The patron was renewing the book. My staff opened the book up, and the patron said, 'Oh, that's my book mark.' "

I know what you're thinking, and Yarman surely would have remembered if the book had been "The Joy of Sex."

Sharon Shrum, director of the public library in West Jefferson, Ohio, recalled her initiation to working with books at a library south of Columbus: "I was a high-school page in the Grove City library. I was pulling out shelved books to see that they were still in good shape, the binding and such. I pulled out this book, and $20 bills started floating out. There was $260."

"We had a staff member find $300 in an envelope," said Gerald Schwab, who manages the circulation division of the Columbus Metropolitan Library. "(The patron) put it in the book and forgot about it."

The money was returned.

"People use money, sometimes large denominations, as bookmarks," said Stephen Lilly, media-relations chief for the Metropolitan Library, "and you never know what is going to be in those return chutes when you open them up."

At one library, Shrum recalled, "someone pulled up almost all of the flowers out front on a very rainy day and shoved them - mud, roots and all - down into the book drop. It ruined the books."

At the Bexley (Ohio) Public Library, "someone put a live cat inside" a book drop, director Robert Stafford said. "It was OK, and the staff released it later."

Dirty diapers are commonly dumped in book drops.

Books returned for shelving in autumn often contain leaves; those returned in summer, sand.

"We have gotten love letters, charming love letters," Schwab said. "One of my colleagues was telling me he found a set of fake fingernails and an emery board."

One librarian said a book was returned bookmarked with a butter knife - with butter on it.

"I guess my favorite," Porter said, "is using toilet paper" as an improvised bookmark.

"I was working at (one) library and I found a piece of uncooked bacon," Schwab said. "It was a cookbook. They must have been using it in the kitchen."

In West Jefferson, Shrum said a patron returned a videocassette of a movie that had been tampered with and taped over in the middle of the film. Shrum didn't know it had been taped over until it was borrowed again and a woman brought it back.

"I think it was like 'My Fair Lady,' or something like that," Shrum said, "and all of a sudden there is this heavy panting. Someone had taped one of those soft-porn channels."

Asked how offended the patron was, Shrum said, "She did go back and check out a whole bunch more."