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“A lesson learned”: Uni student lands herself in an overdue book nightmare

<p dir="ltr">A university graduate student received the shock of her academic career when an email arrived in her inbox to inform her she owed her school’s library a whopping $11,900 in overdue book fines. </p> <p dir="ltr">Hannah took to TikTok to share her story, posting a snippet of the horror email, and the news that her library account had amassed a debt of “$11,9000 owed for 119 lost books”. The books had been declared lost, though Hannah was quick to note that she was “still using” each of them, and had every intention of returning them once she was finished with her studies. </p> <p dir="ltr">To drive home the fact that the books were not missing, and instead safely in her scholarly possession, Hannah panned around the various piles of tomes stacked around her home, with a caption reading “the books aren’t lost, I’m just hoarding them until I finish my dissertation.” </p> <p dir="ltr">The email itself explained the books were marked as lost in the library’s system if they exceeded 30 days overdue, and that there was a flat rate of $100 per book in such instances. And according to the library, it was up to each patron to renew their books, and that Hannah “received overdue notices on the following dates prompting you to renew your library books before they are declared lost.”</p> <p dir="ltr">As she explained to <em>The Daily Dot</em>, she had checked out her collection three years prior while she’d been preparing for exams, and confirmed that she had received four reminders to either renew or return the books, but she’d put it off each time. </p> <p dir="ltr">“Then I got the automatic email,” she added, “saying all of the books were marked as lost and my account was charged $100 per book.” </p> <p dir="ltr">Hannah’s woe drew a mixed response from her audience, with some surprised that her library had even let her withdraw that many books in the first place, others unable to wrap their heads around the fact she could have let her situation get so bad, and many quick to defend the librarian, who they declared had only been doing her job. </p> <p dir="ltr">“My library only lets me check out 5 books at a time,” one wrote.</p> <p dir="ltr">“That’s why keeping library books past their due date is considered stealing,” another said, to which Hannah responded to promise her lesson had been learned. </p> <p dir="ltr">“Only 30 days over due??? Damn give a lil more time,” said one, with Hannah informing them that she’d had the books for years by that point. </p> <p dir="ltr">It wasn’t all bad for the budding scholar though, with Hannah explaining in another comment that “it was hunky dory”, as the library had waived her fees as soon as she’d responded to them, and that she’d been allowed to keep all 119 for an additional year. </p> <p dir="ltr">And, as she told another follower, “I’ve never replied to an email faster.”</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: TikTok</em></p>

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Man cops library fine after returning book 84 years late

<p>After making it through 84 years, several generations and the bombing of an English family home, a classic novel has been returned to the library where it belongs. </p> <p>Paddy Riordan found the copy of Richard Jefferies' Red Deer while he was cleaning out his mother's home late last year, and decided against throwing the tattered book away. </p> <p>Instead, he discovered it was a library book that had been taken out on a load, and decided to return it a mere 30,695 days late.</p> <p>The father-of-two popped back into the Earlsdon Carnegie Community Library with the outrageously overdue book to hand it back to its rightful home. </p> <p>But being a numbers man, Paddy wasn't content to simply return the book, as he also whipped up a spreadsheet to work out how much he owed for the overdue fee. </p> <p>Luckily for him, the tardiness penalty was set at one penny per day, a weightier sum at the time but which when converted into decimal currency came to a grand total of just £18.27 ($32.68), which he donated to the library.</p> <p>"I've seen one or two people who've worked out that at the current rate of fines, if I was paying at the current rate, it should be over £7000 that I would be paying," he jokes.</p> <p>"So I may need to be careful not to visit Coventry for a number of years hence."</p> <p>He thinks the book must have been hired for his mother, Anne, who was just six on October 11, 1938, when it was first checked out, but has no idea what "nefarious reasons" his grandfather, Captain William Southey-Harrison, may have had for not returning the book.</p> <p>"I'm not too sure why my grandfather didn't return the book but in 1940, during one night of the Blitz, the family lost the house," he tells <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/library-books-overdue-man-returns-book-84-years-late-and-pays-the-fine/e9c197c5-7fe5-4060-9286-674b74354777" target="_blank" rel="noopener">9news.com.au</a>.</p> <p>"But somehow in the rubble (they) clearly found the book, which has remained sort of with family possessions ever since."</p> <p>Lucy Winter, the library's community engagement coordinator, is just as surprised by the enthusiasm her quick Facebook post has generated.</p> <p>"Here's something you don't see every day... a copy of Red Deer by Richard Jefferies has been returned to us - a mere 84 years and two weeks overdue!" she wrote.</p> <p>"How wonderful that the book has finally made its way home!"</p> <p><em>Image credits: Earlsdon Carnegie Community Library</em></p>

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Marine protected area is long overdue: Humans threaten the Antarctic Peninsula’s fragile ecosystem

<p>Antarctica, the world’s <a href="https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-018-07183-6/d41586-018-07183-6.pdf">last true wilderness</a>, has been protected by an <a href="https://www.ats.aq/e/antarctictreaty.html">international treaty</a> for the last 60 years. But the same isn’t true for most of the ocean surrounding it.</p> <p><a href="https://www.asoc.org/advocacy/marine-protected-areas">Just 5%</a> of the Southern Ocean is protected, leaving biodiversity hotspots exposed to threats from human activity.</p> <p>The Western Antarctic Peninsula, the northernmost part of the continent and one of its <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0011683">most biodiverse regions</a>, is particularly vulnerable. It faces the cumulative threats of commercial krill fishing, tourism, research infrastructure expansion and climate change.</p> <p>In an <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02939-5">article</a> published in Nature today, we join more than <a href="https://homewardboundprojects.com.au/about/">280 women in STEMM</a> (science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine) from the global leadership initiative Homeward Bound to call for the immediate protection of the peninsula’s marine environment, through the designation of a <a href="https://www.antarcticanow.org/">marine protected area</a>.</p> <p>Our call comes ahead of a meeting, due in the next fortnight, of the <a href="https://www.ccamlr.org/en">international group</a> responsible for establishing marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean. We urge the group to protect the region, because delays could be disastrous.</p> <p><strong>Threats on the peninsula</strong></p> <p>The Southern Ocean <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-the-antarctic-circumpolar-current-helps-keep-antarctica-frozen-106164">plays a vital role</a> in global food availability and security, regulates the planet’s climate and drives global ocean currents. Ice covering the continent stores 70% of the earth’s freshwater.</p> <p>Climate change threatens to unravel the Southern Ocean ecosystem as species superbly adapted to the cold struggle to adapt to warmer temperatures. The impacts of climate change are especially insidious on the Western Antarctic Peninsula, one of the fastest-warming places on Earth. In February, temperatures reached a record high: <a href="https://theconversation.com/anatomy-of-a-heatwave-how-antarctica-recorded-a-20-75-c-day-last-month-134550">a balmy 20.75℃</a>.</p> <p>The peninsula is also the <a href="https://theconversation.com/humans-are-encroaching-on-antarcticas-last-wild-places-threatening-its-fragile-biodiversity-142648">most-visited part of Antarctica</a>, thanks to its easy access, dramatic beauty, awe-inspiring wildlife and rich marine ecosystems.</p> <p>Tourist numbers have doubled in the past decade, increasing the risk of introducing invasive species that hitch a ride on the toursts’ gear. More than <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/470576496/Polar-Perspectives-No-1-Is-it-time-for-a-paradigm-shift-in-how-Antarctic-tourism-is-controlled#download&amp;from_embed">74,000 cruise ship passengers</a> visited last year, up from 33,000 in the 2009-10 season.</p> <p><a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-wants-to-build-a-huge-concrete-runway-in-antarctica-heres-why-thats-a-bad-idea-139596">The expansion of infrastructure</a> to accommodate scientists and research, such as buildings, roads, fuel storage and runways, can also pose a threat, as it displaces local Antarctic biodiversity.</p> <p>Eighteen nations have science facilities on the Antarctic Peninsula, the highest concentration of research stations anywhere on the continent. There are 19 permanent and 30 seasonal research bases there.</p> <p>Another big threat to biodiversity in the peninsula is the commercial fishing of Antarctic krill, a small, shrimp-like crustacean which is the <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.2015">cornerstone of life</a> in this region.</p> <p><strong>A cornerstone of life</strong></p> <p>Krill is a foundation of the food chain in Antarctica, with whales, fish, squid, seals and Adélie and gentoo penguins all feeding on it.</p> <p>But as sea ice cover diminishes, more industrial fishing vessels can encroach on penguin, seal and whale foraging grounds, effectively acting as a competing super-predator for krill.</p> <p>In the past 30 years, colonies of Adélie and Chinstrap penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula have <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41242231?seq=1">declined by more than 50%</a> due to reduced sea ice and krill harvesting.</p> <p>Commercial Antarctic krill fishing is largely for omega-3 dietary supplements and fish-meal. The fishery in the waters of the Western Antarctic Peninsula is the largest in the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-2979.2011.00406.x">Southern Ocean</a>.</p> <p>The krill catch here has <a href="https://www.ccamlr.org/en/fisheries/krill">more than tripled</a> from 88,800 tonnes in 2000 to almost 400,000 tonnes in 2019 — the third-largest krill catch in history and a volume not seen since the 1980s.</p> <p><strong>How do we save it?</strong></p> <p>To save the Antarctic Peninsula, one of critical steps is to protect its waters and its source of life: those tiny, but crucially important, Antarctic krill.</p> <p><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.25px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7838471/antarctica-3.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/b40e7f32cd174fa39cb137d91ce94e0f" /></p> <p><span><em>Image caption: </em></span><em><u>A map of the current and proposed marine protected areas under consideration. Cassandra Brooks, Author provided</u></em></p> <p>This can be done by establishing a marine protected area (MPA) in the region, which would limit or prohibit human activities such as commercial fishing.</p> <p>An MPA around the peninsula was first proposed <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336888437_Protecting_Antarctica_through_Co-production_of_actionable_science_Lessons_from_the_CCAMLR_marine_protected_area_process">in 2018</a>, <a href="https://www.ccamlr.org/en/science/mpa-planning-domains">covering</a> 670,000 square kilometres. But the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (the organisation responsible for establishing MPAs in the Southern Ocean) has yet to reach agreement on it.</p> <p>The proposed MPA is an excellent example of balancing environmental protection with <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-take-marine-areas-help-fishers-and-fish-far-more-than-we-thought-119659">commercial interests</a>.</p> <p>The area would be split into two zones. The first is a general protection zone covering 60% of the MPA, designed to protect different habitats and key wildlife and mitigate specific ecosystem threats from fishing.</p> <p>The second is a krill fishery zone, allowing for a precautionary management approach to commercial fishing and keeping some fishing areas open for access.</p> <p><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.25px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7838472/antarctica-2.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/be0da721223d49479b289f835fa16b2b" /></p> <p><span><em>Image caption: </em></span><em><u>A map of the current and proposed marine protected areas under consideration. Cassandra Brooks, Author provided</u></em></p> <p>The proposed MPA would stand for 70 years, with a review every decade so zones can be adjusted to preserve ecosystems.</p> <p><strong>No more disastrous delays</strong></p> <p>The commission is made up of 25 countries and the European Union. In its upcoming meeting, the proposed MPA will once again be considered. Two other important MPA proposals are also on the table in the East Antarctic and Weddell Sea.</p> <p>In fact, for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/02/antarctic-marine-park-conservationists-frustrated-after-protection-bid-fails-for-eight-time">eight consecutive years</a>, the proposal for a marine park in Eastern Antarctica has failed. Delays like this are potentially disastrous for the fragile ecosystem.</p> <p>Protecting the peninsula is the most pressing priority due to rising threats, but the commission should adopt all three to fulfil their <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269874896_Competing_values_on_the_Antarctic_high_seas_CCAMLR_and_the_challenge_of_marine-protected_areas">2002 commitment</a> to establishing an MPA network in Antarctica.</p> <p>If all three were established, then more than 3.2 million square kilometres of the Southern Ocean would be protected, giving biodiversity a fighting chance against the compounding threats of human activity in the region.</p> <p><em>Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/marissa-parrott-561432">Marissa Parrott</a>, University of Melbourne; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/carolyn-hogg-1166504">Carolyn Hogg</a>, University of Sydney; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/cassandra-brooks-419939">Cassandra Brooks</a>, University of Colorado Boulder; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/justine-shaw-299755">Justine Shaw</a>, The University of Queensland, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/melissa-cristina-marquez-1166518">Melissa Cristina Márquez</a>, Curtin University. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/humans-threaten-the-antarctic-peninsulas-fragile-ecosystem-a-marine-protected-area-is-long-overdue-147671">The Conversation.</a> </em></p>

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6 most ridiculously overdue books returned to libraries

<p>Remember the horror of realising you’ve kept a library book past its due date? Well, imagine realising you’ve kept one 221 years longer than you should have. Here, we’re taking a look at 6 of the most ridiculously overdue books that were ever returned to libraries – who knows how many even older ones are sitting in bookshelves around the world!</p> <p><strong>6. <em>The Picture of Dorian Gray</em> by Oscar Wilde</strong></p> <p>While sorting through her late mother’s belongings, Harlean Hoffman Vision found a rare edition of this iconic novel originally borrowed from the Chicago Public Library and vowed to return it. “She kept saying, ‘You’re not going to arrest me?’ and we said, ‘No, we’re so happy you brought it back,’” recalled the library’s marketing director, Ruth Lednicer.</p> <p><strong>5. <em>Master of Men</em> by E. Phillips Oppenheim</strong></p> <p>Given that Oppenheim was born and bred in Leicestershire, the Leicester County Library couldn’t’ve been happier to reclaim this piece of local literary history, which turned up in a nearby house 79 years after it was borrowed.</p> <p><strong>4. F<em>acts I Ought to Know About the Government of My Country</em> by William H. Bartlett</strong></p> <p>Try to contain your excitement at the title of this undoubtedly thrilling read, which was returned one year shy of a century after it was borrowed from the New Bedford Public Library in Massachusetts, US. The man who returned it claimed his mother, a Polish immigrant, borrowed the book to brush up on the politics of her adopted country.</p> <p><strong>3. <em>Insectivorous Plants</em> by Charles Darwin</strong></p> <p>A copy of Darwin’s treatise on bug-eating plants was borrowed from Sydney’s Camden School of Arts Lending Library back in 1889. It was finally returned 122 years later on July 22, 2011.</p> <p><strong>2. <em>The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians, and Grecians (volume II)</em> by Charles Rollin</strong></p> <p>In 2013, this old tome (originally borrowed from the Grace Doherty Library in Danville, Kentucky) was found at a nearby school for the deaf, where it’s believed to have remained since 1854. “It’s been out of the library for at least 150 years,” librarian Stan Campbell said.</p> <p><strong>1. <em>The Law of Nations</em> by Emmerich de Vattel</strong></p> <p>This legal manifesto was borrowed from the New York Society Library by George Washington five months into his presidency – but he never returned it. For 221 years it remained hidden in his Virginia home and was finally sent back to the library in 2010. Lucky for his descendants, the library waived the $300,000 late fee. Phew!</p> <p>Do you still have any overdue library books from back in the day? Let us know in the comments!</p>

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Man returns library book 49 years late

<p>It’s not often that a man returning a book to a library makes the news, but when the library’s been waiting 49 years for the book that’s another matter altogether. </p> <p>James Phillips, a former student at the University of Dayton, has finally returned the book he borrowed in his first year as a student.</p> <p><img width="499" height="405" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/17546/cef3soww4am60os_499x405.jpg" alt="Ce F3SOWW4AM60Os" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"/></p> <p>Mr Phillips returned the copy of <em>History of the Crusades</em>, which he borrowed in 1967, along with a handwritten note of apology. </p> <p>“Please accept my apologies for the absence of the enclosed book History of the Crusades,” Mr Phillips wrote. “I apparently checked it out when I was a freshman student and somehow it got misplaced all these years.”</p> <p>The library appreciated Mr Phillips’ sincere apology – and thank goodness they did! The fine (rising two cents every day under the library’s old system) would have been $350!</p> <p><em>Image credit: Twitter / UD Media Relations</em></p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><a href="/news/news/2016/03/jackie-kennedy-granddaughter-looks-just-like-her/"><strong>Jackie Kennedy’s granddaughter looks just like her</strong></a></em></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong><a href="/news/news/2016/03/penguin-5000-miles-reunite-71-year-old-man/">Penguin swims 5,000 miles every year to reunite with 71-year-old man</a></strong></em></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong><a href="/news/news/2016/03/85-year-old-man-finds-lost-wallet-71-years-later/">85-year-old man finds lost wallet, 71 years later</a></strong></em></span></p>

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