FEW BOOKS ARE STOLEN
FROM PUBLIC LIBRARY.
Cynics Might Learn Lesson in
Optimism There -- Uncle Sam
Helps Find Delinquents.
The cynic who believes that the world is going to the bow-wows because of increasing dishonesty could take a lesson in optimism at the public library from the infrequency with which books are stolen by the general public.
"The number of books lost through theft in the course of a year is surprisingly small when it is taken into consideration that the library, to meet its greatest usefulness, is forced to allow the books to be taken out in a rather indiscriminate way," said Mrs. Carrie W. Whitney, the librarian. "And beside that, it doesn't seem any more of a crime to a book lover to steal a book than it does to a man with a plug hat to steal an umbrella on a rainy day."
In spite of the air of trust that surrounds the obtaining of books at the library, close supervision over thousands who receive books from there is maintained. The most potent agency used by the library in finding thoughtless persons who take public library books with them when they remove to some other portion of the city than the residence they gave in getting the library card, is the postoffice department. Persons who leave Kansas City are located through the same agency.
When almost every effort to locate the thoughtless borrower had bee made, the librarians drop a registered note in the mails. Uncle Sam takes charge of it. There are few persons who do not leave a new address at the postoffice. They may ignore polite notes to return the book, leaving the librarian to believe they never received the letter.
But when a registered letter arrives, their signatures must be placed on the return slip, which is sent back promptly to the library. This course rarely fails to locate the borrower and the book.
