It's a Christmas miracle!

I had never witnessed an incident of personal accountability like I did a couple of weeks ago. A man approached the circulation desk near the end of the day on a Friday. There were 3 of us there, getting ready to close up shop, and it took a little bit of effort on the part of this patron to get our attention. And when we found out what he wanted us to do, we all stood there in awed admiration.

This patron showed us a book that he had been using. He had never signed it out, but had read it only while in the libary. He showed us how it had been damaged by water, and admitted that he had spilt the water on it while he was using the book. The pages were obviously thickened and separated because of water damage, but the book itself wasn't in horrible condition, just a little worn-looking. Then the patron produced a new copy of the book, still in its Amazon.com wrapper, and told us that he would like to replace the book he had damaged. My supervisor was so suprised at this man's honesty that she hastily admitted to never having seen such a thing before. We all had stopped what we were doing and just stood there, not knowing how to take the new book from the kindly man. My supervisor finally took the old book, ripped off the barcode and gave it to him in exchange for the new one. We didn't, after all, need two copies. So the patron got a copy out of the deal, but he certainly wasn't expecting it. At one point I said, "well, now you'll have 3 dates for Saturday if you want". He smiled shyly, but really just wanted to hand in the new book and get out of there. I don't blame him. People who are genuinely charitable don't wish for a scene to be caused in honour of their good will. But I certainly won't forget this Christmas miracle for a very long time.

Next, please.