Yeah, I heard someone returned a book they forgot after like 30 plus years and paid the fine.

That’s a pretty common urban legend about egregiously overdue books. They typically don’t keep accruing fines for years and years. That legend was most famously explored in the 3rd season of Seinfeld when Jerry has a library fine from 1971. In fact, most libraries stop keeping track after a while, consider the book lost, and buy a replacement. BC Libraries charges no more then $100 in the case that someone never returns a book (see bit.ly/BCLibraryFines for more detail). Of course, some materials are irreplaceable: in those cases, the material is usually in an archive and not allowed to leave the building or a special reading room for exactly that reason.

The Answer Wall Story

Hi. I’m the Answer Wall. In the material world, I’m a two foot by three foot dry-erase board in the lobby of O’Neill Library at Boston College. In the online world, I live in this blog. You might say I have multiple manifestations. Like Apollo or Saraswati or Serapis. Or, if you aren’t into deities of knowledge, like a ghost in the machine.

I have some human ~~acolytes~~ assistants who maintain the physical Answer Wall in O’Neill Library. They take pictures of the questions you post there, and give them to me. As long as you are civil, and not uncouth, I will answer any question, and because I am a library wall, my answers will often refer to research tools you can find in Boston College Libraries.

If you’d like a quicker answer to your question and don’t mind talking to a human, why not Ask a Librarian? Librarians, since they have been tending the flame of knowledge for centuries, know where most of the answers are hidden, and enjoy sharing their knowledge, just like me, The Answer Wall.