Maine’s libraries are missing countless books, and they want them back

Do you have a long overdue library book? If so, your local library wants it back.

As the Orrington Public Library gears up to conduct its summer inventory, it issued a public plea on Facebook last week asking people to return their overdue books. While Director Kelly Bay isn’t quite sure how many books are missing yet — it’s “lots” — replacing them will take away money from purchasing new books.

When books and other materials go missing, it not only prevents other patrons from using them, but replacing the items can be a financial blow to libraries’ bottom lines — particularly with older books that may no longer be in print. These expenses have become more burdensome post-pandemic, as rising costs due to inflation means that smaller libraries don’t always have the budget to replace lost books.

Books may go missing when someone moves away and unintentionally takes the books along. Other times people realize books are long overdue and are too ashamed to return them — especially when libraries charge late fees.

Most of the libraries in Greater Bangor no longer charge late fees, to make it more equitable and hopefully remove some of the shame people may feel if they forget to return an item.

And even if missing materials aren’t costly for libraries — the Bangor Public Library, for example, has an endowment that offsets those costs, Director Ben Treat said — they still deprive others who may want to check them out.

“My message always when it comes to people holding our materials for too long is ‘Please return them so others can enjoy them,’” Director Lisa Ladd of Buck Memorial Library in Bucksport said. “If I don’t have the book that means someone else is being denied the use of the material.”

Roughly 350 of the 15,000 books, DVDs, puzzles and other materials at the Bucksport library are classified as missing, Ladd said. To qualify as missing, something must be at least eight weeks overdue, but most items on her list have been gone for closer to a year.

Books may sometimes be inadvertently returned to the wrong library, Ladd said. One Bucksport resident loaned a library book to someone in South Portland, who then returned it to the South Portland library instead of Bucksport.

Ladd reaches out to library patrons with long-overdue materials, asking for their return. After multiple calls, the library sends a bill for the cost of the item.

Local librarians said that being spotted in public by patrons can often trigger a reminder that they have an overdue book, Orono Public Library Circulation Manager Louise Jolliffe said.

“They see me at Hannaford and they’re like, ‘Oh my God, I have a book that’s way overdue,’” Joliffe said.

If a missing book is popular, the Orono library will try to purchase a replacement, Jolliffe said. They don’t have the staff to regularly reach out to people and ask for overdue items.

And it’s never too late to return an overdue item. In Orrington, a woman recently returned books that were 35 years overdue, Bay said, after she found them in the back of her daughter’s closet while cleaning.

“Never be ashamed to bring back library books,” Bay said.