Found at the Burlington MA Public Library:
A photo of a black puppy with a toy bunny in its mouth.
A mass card for Rev. John R. Crispo.
A Happy Mother’s Day card for “Nana.”
A purple “Award of Excellence” ribbon.
A piece of lined paper colored with bright dots of purple, yellow, blue and green and the words “Juliana Book Mark.”
While these items once helped people find their place in a library book, they now decorate a green board with a “Did you lose your bookmark?” sign in Burlington’s Town Library. Library staff put items found in returned books on the board in hopes that library patrons will be reunited with items of sentimental value.
“To us, some bookmark (someone’s) child gave them has no monetary value but its sentimental,” said Cara Thissell, the circulation librarian. She had the idea to put up the board a few years ago, as an alternative to throwing out the sentimental items.
Now, it’s an evolving piece of art in the library. “We leave it up until it starts falling over,” Thissell said. “We don’t really police it. Kids climb up on the bench to look at it.” Story from Boston.com.
Although
They need a bigger board.
People won’t be able to find anything with it all piled on top of each other.
Looks good as artwork, not so useful if your stuff is at the bottom of the pile (depending on how many other pieces arrive at the same time as yours I guess).
Always interesting though isn’t it 🙂
Hmmm…
If the lost items are important, the circ staff should be able to easily find who had the book out and contact the patron. If the bookmark happened to be a slice of bacon, I bet they would be able to.
I have found…
During my circ days, I found a pair of reading glasses squished between a hard cover book, and a person’s debit card from their bank left as a bookmark. Both returned to relieved owners.