Durability Of Books...Late Fees —Cagle
IT SEEMS that no matter how long a book is checked out from the public library, it will eventually return. But, we may have found the record for the most overdue tome in the history of libraries.
Late last year a book titled "Facts I Ought to Know About the Government of My Country" made its way back to the New Bedford Public Library in Massachusetts. How old was the book? The loss of President McKinley was still fresh on the minds of many, and no one outside of Baltimore's slums had ever heard the name Babe Ruth. The book was due May 10, 1910, nearly 100 years ago.
The returnee, Stanley Dudek, told a local paper that he found the book while rummaging through the possessions of his late mother. He felt that returning the book, obsolete though it may now be, was the proper thing to do.
Dudek wasn't asked to pay the late fee, which was a penny per day, or $361.35. Adjusted for inflation, it would've likely cost Dudek a fortune had the library not been so forgiving.
In Toledo, OH, an older gentleman who, as a teenager, had made off with a 700-page biography about Napoleon Bonaparte in 1949 could no longer tolerate
the weight of his transgression (or the weight of the book itself) and mailed it back to the town's library. The man had failed to check it out, so there was no trace of where the book was residing for the last 60 years.
In the words of Napoleon himself, "The best way to keep one's word is not to give it."
According to the Toledo Blade, the book arrived from Beverly Hills, CA, in great condition with a letter of apology from the man who had mysteriously whisked it away from the library's shelves.
DIGITAL DRIVES PRINT: Here's a big shout out to the viability of print and its impact on recipients. Online shoes and merchandise seller Zappos.com mailed out 750,000 copies of a printed catalog in time for the 2009 Christmas shopping season, The New York Times reported. The catalog, titled Zappos Life, offered footwear, handbags, jewelry, clothing and fragrances, among other things.
Aaron Magness, director for brand marketing and business development for Zappos.com, told the newspaper that "different people respond to different media." This catalog, the third sent out by Zappos during 2009, was well received by what Magness termed as "lapsed customers," a.k.a. consumers who haven't bought anything lately.
Catalog-driven orders are more than twice the size of an average order that originated on Zappos.com. More seasonal and holiday catalogs are planned for this year, Magness told the paper.
OVERSEAS ACCIDENT: AFP reported in December that a worker for a printing plant in Munich, Germany, lost all 10 of his fingers after they got caught in the printing press' rollers. The unidentified man was cleaning the press when they became caught. He went into shock and was immediately rushed to a local hospital.
Sadly, the worker's fingers could not be found and reattached. A technician who was sent to the factory to dismantle the press could not find the appendages, despite a two-hour search.
WASTE OF MONEY?: Last month, a blog on U.S. News & World Report exposed the hypocrisy of Congress. Paul Bedard's Washington Whispers pointed out that Congress tries to coerce doctors into adopting digital files in an effort to stem the costs of healthcare, yet itself spends nearly $97 million a year to print documents including the Congressional Record. Bedard pointed out that one page of the daily Congressional Record costs $727 to print.
Your tax dollars at work...but anything that supports the printed product is a worthwhile cause. And while $97 million sounds like a lot of money, if it represented the most egregious act of wasteful spending by the government, our nation would be well on the road to recovery, with a balanced budget and a surplus to boot.
FOXY O'NEIL: Fred Buck and our old amigos at O'Neil Printing, the pride of Phoenix, recently welcomed their local Fox TV news affiliate's morning show to the printing facility as part of its efforts to highlight local businesses.
In an installment of "Cory's Corner," Fox 10's Cory McCloskey took a tour of the plant with O'Neil Printing's Tony Narducci. The reporter seemed genuinely surprised at what he found inside, an indication of the continued misconceptions the general public has about the modern printing industry.
Narducci's proudest moment was showing McCloskey the Sappi Paper North American Printer of the Year award it captured for the book segment. McCloskey also noted that the printer was one of Phoenix's oldest concerns.
A nice bit of PR and an example of cross-channel marketing, courtesy of television. PI
—Erik Cagle
