Returned after 84 years
Credit: Oodi Central Library
There was some amusement as well as surprise when somebody walked into Helsinki s Oodi Central Library on Monday 27 with a book that was overdue.
84 years overdue
It’s not unusual to be a little delayed in returning a library book but this one was unusual in as much as it was due back on December 26, 1939 making it just over 84 years late!
The person who returned it isn’t the person who first took out the book The Refugees (Pakolaiset in Finnish) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and it is not known whether there was a fine and if so how much.
Coincidentally, another book which was also 84 years late was returned to Coventry Library in the UK in 2022 and the fine then was calculated at £18.27, being one old penny a week for the 4,385 weeks it was overdue.
Russian Invasion of Finland
Apparently the book returned in Finland was in remarkably good condition and the library is considering whether to put make it available to the current generation of readers, especially as this is a survivor of the Russian Invasion of Finland which took place at the end of November 1939.
This is not apparently the longest overdue book to be returned in Finland as according to TV station YLE, Helsinki’s Pukinmäki Library received another Conan Doyle novel in 2015 which was 87 years overdue.
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