NPR: A Librarian Collects All the Things Left in Books — From Love Letters to Old Photos
An ornate pencil drawing of a dragon; a floral postcard congratulating a 40th birthday, never mailed; a silver crochet hook.
All of these items share a connection: They were left behind in books returned to the Oakland Public Library.
Librarian Sharon McKellar collects the found artifacts and posts them on the library’s website in a collection titled “Found in a Library Book.”
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To McKellar, the project’s fun lies in imagining an item’s possible history and the person it belonged to.
“It lets us be a little bit nosy. In a very anonymous way, it’s like reading people’s secret diaries a little bit but without knowing who they are,” or breaching anyone’s trust, she said.
She said the library may someday hold a writing contest and ask people to submit short stories to go along with the found items.
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Filed under: Libraries, News, Public Libraries

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.