Family Pays Maryland Library Late Fees for Books Checked Out in the 1970s

Books will stay with the family

A Maryland library recently received a check covering more than 40 years of late fees for two books.

Jon Kramer fondly remembers his family spending a lot of time at the Twinbrook Library when they lived in Rockville. It was an important part of their lives, he wrote in a letter to the library.

“We loved our library!” he wrote. “So much, in fact, that we apparently absconded with a part of it.”

He was referring to two books he found at his parents’ home on an island in Ontario, Canada, last month, 42 years after the books made the journey with the Kramers when they left Maryland.

“My parents moved first to Minnesota, then up to the islands, and they took the books with them all along the way,” Kramer said.

The family couldn’t part with “The New Way of the Wilderness” and “365 Meatless Main Dishes.”

The wilderness book has very special meaning to Kramer’s family because it was the book that led his father to explore the great outdoors and move the family to Minnesota.

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“It became kind of a bible to him, and that was the start of many family vacations,” Kramer said.

Upon finding the books, which still have the Montgomery County Library punch cards on the inside back covers, Kramer decided to do the right thing and pay his parents’ late fees. He called his brothers and sisters, who agreed to chip in.”

“We should do something to give back to the library that was an important part of our lives and our upbringing,” he said.

“We apologize for that oversight and hereby endeavor to correct the wrong,” he wrote the library.

“I went on the internet to research what late fees were back then, but there’s no record, so we remembered 5 cents a day,” Kramer said.

He did the math -- 5 cents a day for more than 31,000 days -- and sent the library a check for $1,552.30.

On Amazon, “The New Way of the Wilderness” can be found for $3.69 and “365 Meatless Main Dishes” can be found for 44 cents.

“I didn’t overpay at all when you consider the impact it had on our lives,” Kramer said.

Library officials said the Kramers didn’t have to send such a big check.

“This was so unique because such a period of time had passed and what was so wonderful is he didn’t need to do this,” said Carol Legarreta of Montgomery County Public Libraries.

Typically, the cost to replace the books would be enough.

This scenario – and the family name – are reminiscent of “Seinfeld.” In one episode, library inspector Mr. Bookman, played by Philip Baker Hall, tracks down a book also missing since the 1970s.

But that TV reference was lost on this Kramer, who said he’d rather read a book.

“To be honest with you I’ve never had a TV in my house,” Kramer said.

And unlike in the TV show, these books won’t be returned.

“They’ve actually become part of the family heirlooms,” Kramer said.

“It is our hope that you will refrain from calling the FBI to report this as international trafficking of stolen goods,” Kramer wrote in his letter.

“If the library wants a copy of ‘The New Way of the Wilderness,’ I will go to Amazon and buy it for them, but they’re not getting the one that up at the island,” he said.

He wrote the library he dosen’t expect it to just let him keep the books without more late fees.

“Allow us the freedom of maintaining the ill-begotten literature on loan for the next 85 combined years or so, at which time we hope to make another payment to your venerable institution on their behalf,” he wrote.

The late fee, by the way, is up to 35 cents a day now.

The library will use the money for its collection, including books on wilderness and cookbooks.

“For them to do that in the spirit of the donation is a beautiful thing and more than we could have asked for,” Kramer said.

He hopes this story helps get more people excited about books and their local libraries.

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