Kicker: Back to the basics at the library

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, this is National Library Week. Libraries around the country are celebrating in various ways.

But one library is doing something a little different. The Hopewell Library in New Jersey is celebrating the return of a book checked out back in 1979!

Here’s the boss, Andrea Merrick, inspecting a box of books that someone dropped off.

ANDREA MERRICK: And when we were going through it, we saw like, this looks like an old library book.

It was called Back to Basics and it's about flying planes.

I wonder if it says anything about flight delays. I mean, 44 years since it was checked out?

MERRICK: We still have overdue fines.

If you do the math, it’s a doozy, strictly speaking. Ten cents a day, we’re talking more than $1,600 in fines. But ...

MERRICK: Because this book was so old, we don't have a record of it anymore. So nobody would've been fined for it. And even if you do get fined, we have a cap at $6.

Hmm. Maybe no extensive collection of economics books.

So Merrick is going with moral suasion, She says, regardless of how much time has passed.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Just bring ‘em in.

EICHER: It’s The World and Everything in It.

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