Books by Mail and Me by Kathy Twitchell, Literary Lantern Bearers lending library-to-be

The Pine Tree State has a huge discrepancy in population. More than half of the people in Maine are located in the lower quarter or so of the state, along the coast, where there are normal municipal and cultural services within an hour’s drive (or much, much less). The rest of the state’s population is spread over the other 3/4 of our surface area, with a heavy concentration of those people congregating along the I-95 corridor where the other small cities in our state are located. All of these people can get to a “regular” public library and the other trappings of civilization fairly easily (especially when they have a car). 

Then there are the rest of us. With the exception of the upper west quadrant of the state which is so densely covered by the Maine Northwoods that it has one town of seven people, the rest of the state is dotted with small towns that are generally getting smaller. I have lived for over 30 years in Western Maine, in a town of 983 people, in a county that has an average of 10-20 residents per square mile. We are 15-20 miles from a large ski resort, the Appalachian Trail, and most of the 4,000+ foot mountains in our state, and are 30 miles (in the opposite direction) from the nearest hospital and Walmart, 50 miles from the closest Home Depot and Five Guys, and 60 miles from the closest Barnes and Noble and Sam’s Club. 

We live in a small town in the middle of nowhere. I have owned more books than the tiny local public library for at least two decades. We rapidly outgrew their collection before the oldest of our six children turned ten. Because our town’s library service was so limited for so many years, we qualified for the state library’s Books by Mail program, as did the majority of smaller towns in the state. We have borrowed many hundreds of books this way. Because the Maine State Library is taxpayer funded, there was no fee for this service IF your town met the qualifications. If the town was not on the list, the service was not available at all.

Initially, the librarians regularly sent paper catalogs of their available collection from which we could order books to borrow. Those inexpensive printouts were diligently kept and perused often. The advent of the internet as we know it changed how the Books by Mail program operated. Now books were available online, and not just from the state library offices. Now we had access to many other libraries, and the Books by Mail program handled picking them up and returning the books to these other locations. We now request library books online, they still ship them to us in specially labeled canvas bags, and we actually only pay postage one way (for the return trip). Because we happen to live only 60 miles from the State Library Building (and go to the capital regularly for groceries), I usually just return the books to the overnight return slot at the library, secured in their shipping bags. (The bags are very important, so the books go to the correct department.) I am glad it is so easy to return books because of high postage fees and the fact that the state library Lost Book Fee is $50 per book.

Having this remote access to books that we could use in our home made SUCH a difference to our home education that the children and I once went on a field trip to visit the Books by Mail department, located in the basement and not available for public browsing. They were surprised and delighted that we just wanted to come say thank you! Our faithful remote librarian, who served in the bowels of the building for so many years, shipping hundreds and thousands of books to faceless people, is now the head librarian for the Maine State Library (We love Jim!). 

The other thing I started doing about 20 years ago was driving our five (then six) children 90 miles each way to my beloved city library, where I used to study when I was in high school and college. Bangor Public Library cards are free to anyone in the state, and the books have a three-week checkout with up to two renewals available. 

Even if all I do is browse, I ADORE wandering the back juvenile stacks which are hiding one of the best collections of living books in the state. I can easily spend two hours in the children’s department! Actually I haven’t been all that often since the brain injury, nor do I have a handful of children hauling their own rolling suitcases full of books to and from the library any more (Our youngest is seventeen!). Checking out the Twitchells’ 200+ books every 2-3 months was mandatory training for newbie librarians at one point. When they added bar codes to the library we were frequently bringing up books that had not been checked out in years that needed bar codes added. So many wonderful memories. This is a library that impacted my children so strongly that my daughter dedicated the first book she published to the staff at the Bangor Public Library.

This is a ridiculously long explanation about my reason for considering remotely lending library books. I am willing to look into offering this because of my own experiences with libraries that were willing to accomodate our family’s ravenous book appetites. Right now I am working on cataloguing my Literary Lantern Bearers lending library-to-be. I need the collection entered in the catalog so people can browse for books remotely; I am using the annual subscription service from www.livingbookslady.com. When I institute my own Books by Mail library option, it will be for people who are willing to agree to my private lending library contract and subscription fees. 

I intend to charge an additional (refundable) deposit to mail patrons, due to the increased risk of shipping books back and forth. They will need to pay postage (nonrefundable) both ways as well, or come here to drop off books periodically. I am still thinking about limits for this service. I may charge one deposit for a certain number of books or a certain replacement value, and increase that deposit amount for those who have completed a probationary period and wish to check out more books at a time. I might not ship books that are difficult to replace? Still thinking through the details. This service perhaps requires an even higher level of trust than having in-person patrons, but live patrons may be few out here in the woods.

For full disclosure, I should mention that I have tried this once already, informally lending by mail to a friend. As is the case for a number of the times I have loaned books informally to various local friends, this action resulted in a lost book. My far away friend did pay all the postage fees, although I did not request a deposit. I printed a mailing label to ship the book to her. I also included with the book a second mailer with the return postage label on it, ready for the return of the book. As so often happens, my friend’s life rapidly became chaotic, with major illnesses and other family concerns that far outweighed the book I had loaned. I decided to consider the biography a gift to the family, and am counting this as a learning experience for me. I have replaced the book and have no hard feelings. I do, however, see great value in a formal lending agreement and extra deposits for mail patrons.

This article is part of our Librarian Notices series of library stories at The Card Catalog. You can connect with us to comment on this story or any of our other library stories on our Facebook page.