Better Late Than Never?

By 250 News

Prince George, B.C.- A paperback was returned Monday to the Prince George Public Library, exactly 33 years and four months after it was first due.

Panther, a junior paperback by Roderick Haig-Brown, still had its original Prince George Public Library loan card inside, stating the book was due for return no later than March 5, 1977.

Since the book has been considered lost for more than three decades and since it was borrowed before computer systems were introduced to the library, there is no way to track down who actually took the book out of the library.

The library caps its maximum overdue fee for books at $5 per item.  If there was no maximum, however, the 20 cents per day overdue charge would have ballooned to $2,433.

The book would have been signed out at the library’s former location on Brunswick Street, where the Prince George and District Senior Activity Centre is today. The library moved to the current Bob Harkins branch in 1981.

The book will not be returned to the library shelves. Although Panther is intact, some of the pages at the back are stained and several other pages have pieces torn out of them.

Haig-Brown, a well-known B.C. author and conservationist, died in 1976. Panther was published in 1934, when he was just 26 years old. A year after he died, and the same year the book was borrowed from the library, Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park was established on the Adams River between Salmon Arm and Kamloops to protect a key sockeye salmon run.

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