An Edgewood man, BC, is being praised for his reflective maintenance of a library book that returned to the University of BC this January, almost 65 years after taking it out.
Robert Murray took out his copy of a 1931 edition of Camping and Woodcraft: Vacation Campistas and Travelers in the Desert By Horace Kephart in 1960, towards the end of his second year of Electrical Engineering in UBC.
The former 83 -year -old train worker said that the book offered many practical advice and remains one of his favorites, and maintained it due to the amount of value he had, after being written around the change of the century before a modern camp team arose.
But almost 65 years after he took it out in May 1960, he sent him back along with a letter, a $ 100 check that he expected would cover his late rates and a newspaper cut of someone who returns the same book to a library of Prince George after three decades in 2014.
Murray felt relieved to hear that, while the UBC library had eliminated late rates in 2020, its donation would be used to cover other backward rates in the university.
“I had made a week of calculation of what two cents per day for 60 years to three percent [inflation] I would work, and I didn’t like the answer, “the retiree told CBC News.
“It is a generous donation, I suppose, now because I learned that the UBC library has renounced expired payments,” he added.
In the letter to university, Murray said the book was a “treasure” and probably saved life and that of his son while he was in the field.
Since then he has bought a new copy of the book in Amazon, and said that the lessons in Kephart’s book showed the “difference between the guy who knew what he was talking about and a lot of applicants.”
The librarian said the return caused agitation
Susan Parker, the university librarian, said he came to the office in January this year to find the package and carefully wrapped in Murray.
She told CBC News that the package caused a stir in the library, since the staff was surprised at how the only situation was, and that the book would eventually return to the circulation given its quality.
“It surprised me a little because generally when things are out so long, people don’t return them,” he said. “Or if they return them, it is quite anonymous.
“I have been working in libraries for almost so long, 40 years, and I have not seen a book returned after this length,” he added.
Parker says that he advises anyone in a situation like Murray that does not wait for six and a half decades and that they could talk to their library if they are worried about late rates.
“We want the books to return,” he said. “We want to share them with everyone, and we want you to feel comfortable coming to the library and do not feel bad or guilty.”
The book helped form the emotional moment
Murray said he read the book several times over the years. The avid campist was regularly on the mountain until approximately 2000. He said that the practical advice in the book helped him form a moment of union with his son David.
While he was 50, he said that he and his son were lost in a rainy day in June inside BC. Edgewood’s silver platform compass and the Omega clock were damaged, and could not find the path that they set out to walk.
While his son finally thought about putting a tent, Murray said his knowledge of the book told him that a tent would be useless in that climate, and then helped him advise his son how to avoid hypothermia.
“He cooled a lot, and I told him that he was sitting by the fire, to take off his clothes,” Murray said, laughing. “You should have seen his face.”
But Murray knew for the book that his son’s wet clothes would take the heat from his body.
After his son took off his clothes and warmed them for a fire, Murray said they could finally return the next day after eating stew they did in the field.
“I think it could easily serve as a text or an excellent reference for any study … of life in the North America desert,” Murray wrote in his letter.
