Someone is Stealing the Great Books of Houston: Collection Agency Called In

As it turns out, though, it’s probably mostly videos and laptops (laptops? yeah, more on that in a minute) because who’s reading books any more these days, am I right? (Oh, I hear you, with your, “I read! I’ve got a Kindle!” And while you may have a Kindle, you’re using it to pretend to read the New Yorker just like the rest of us and to hide the fact that you’re still working your way through the Sookie Stackhouse books but I’m here to tell you my friend: Sookie Stackhouse books aren’t reading.)

The Houston Public Library’s delinquency record is kind of appalling. Patrons owe the library almost $12 million. How does that break down?

Well, since 1999, 119,558 library patrons have wandered off with 325,000 items, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Now, the Houston Public Library sounds fancier than my local library (Rockville Main Branch Library represent!); it lets patrons check out things like laptops. In fact, 11 laptops have disappeared since 2006. Patrons aren’t supposed to take the laptop out of the library — but we’ve all seen that special episode of “The Facts of Life” where Nancy McKeon steals a Hawai’ian shirt for Mrs Garrett’s birthday because the girls thought it was on sale but it wasn’t, and if Jo Polniaczek can shoplift, none of us are safe from that siren song. (You can watch part one of that episode here and you’re welcome. I’m kind of the Natalie of the office, just FYI. I’ll let you guys firgure out which one of the others is Blair.)

Library officials finally got tired of waiting for the goodness of human nature to kick in and all the missing materials to be gladly returned. (OH! And the great thing about the Houston Chronicle article I linked to above? It totally names names. The top delinquent in the Houston area is Laura Smith — though, of course, for the others it was just an honor being nominated. And someone named Gregory Ybarra has been identified as the holder of a stolen laptop. “He was charged for the theft, but the charge ultimately was dismissed because he was facing more serious charges, court documents show.” Which goes to show that there are more exciting things happening in Texas than shower dream sequences or ranches in Crawford.) They’ve hired the services of Utility Manangement Services to help collect on these past-due accounts.

In 2010, the agency helped the library recover $395,500.

I’ll let Syma Zerkow, chief of library material services at Houston Public Library, walk us out: “We help our customers and send them reminders before the books are due,” Zerkow told the Houston Chronicle. “We even work with them on a payment plan for fines. We understand things happen, but we do want our stuff back.”