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Do you hear that? It’s the sound of a thousand posts being written around the phrase “better late than never.” Diane Kooiker is the Herrick District Library director in Holland, Michigan.
Last week, she received a plain UPS package in the mail. Inside was a book that had been missing from the library since 1967, an extremely pleasant note, and a check. “I was a student at
Hope College in 1967,” the letter reads. “I must have been doing a paper or some research on World War II as I checked out the enclosed book.” “Somewhere along the way it got mixed up with
my personal things and put into a trunk and shipped back to New York,” the unnamed library patron wrote. “I have moved the trunk many times but until recently never opened it. Upon doing so,
I found your book.” “Please accept the book and my modest donation to cover what I am sure is a tremendous fine.” Kooiker didn’t identify the man or the amount of the check, but said that
his donation more than covered the cost of the book. “We enjoyed the trip down memory lane and realize that there are good, honest people who have inadvertently misplaced a book,” she told
MLive.com.