Almost everyone has hung onto a library book a little bit too long, but how many of us can measure that infraction in decades?
Robert Murray can, after holding on to a beloved but borrowed copy of a book on woodcraft from the UBC library for 64 years.
The book in question? A 1931 edition of Camping and Woodcraft: A Handbook for Vacation Campers and for Travelers in the Wilderness, originally authored in 1906.
“I picked this book up just by happenstance when I was in the library one day and realized it was gold. So I went through it and I took it out a second time, and extended the loan, and still thought it was gold,” Murray told Global News.
“And I thought then that as it had only been taken out once in the last 10 years maybe I could keep it a little bit longer.”
That was May 10, 1960.
The 1934 copy of ‘Camping and Woodcraft: A Handbook for Vacation Campers and for Travelers in the Wilderness’ that Robert Murray returned to the UBC library 64 years late.
Global News
Fast forward to January when UBC librarian Susan Parker received a mysterious package in the mail from an unrecognized address.
Packaged neatly and with love inside was Camping and Woodcraft, along with a letter explaining the circumstances.
“He basically said that he has treasured this book even though he borrowed it 64 years ago from the library when he was a UBC student, but he really wants to get it back,” she explained.
Get daily National news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
“For him it was really just a continuation of his love of the outdoors, and he really wanted to continue doing that kind of living and he just regarded the book as a treasure … he said it was real gold to him and he hopes it would be the same to other people.”
According to Murray, the “gold” in the book proved invaluable more than once.
He described its contents as practical information from someone with genuine backcountry experience, as opposed to the “pretty much garbage” found in other books of the era marketed to early hippies and back-to-the-land types.
He credited information he learned in the volume with potentially saving his son David’s life during one camping trip where they were caught in rain and began to cool down quickly.
“David wanted to put the tent up, and I says, ‘Nope, no good, we just take the water inside with us and freeze,’ so we put up a tarp, lean-to, got a fire going in front of it, David actually started to shiver and was getting hypothermic,” he said.
“An hour later we were fine with the fire going happily in front of us we flaked out in our sleeping bags and eating stew.”
Murray said that while he always felt the book should eventually be returned, it was an article he read in the newspaper about a decade ago that got the ball rolling.
Incredibly, the story was a feature about someone who had taken out the exact same book, Camping and Woodcraft, and returned it to the Prince George Public Library more than 30 years overdue.
He initially told his wife and daughter to return the book for him after he passed away, but after a health scare decided he wanted to do it himself.
He also ponied up a voluntary fine — though, ironically, UBC has since stopped charging people for late library books.
“In the envelope was a cheque for $100 because he really felt like he should pay some kind of overdue fine, but he sort of calculated what that would be and he thought the number was too big so he just settled on giving us a cheque for $100 and hoped that I would say that would be OK,” Parker told Global News.
“Which of course I did.”
After some minor repairs, it will soon be back on the shelf, joining the more than 8.5 million printed books in UBC’s collection.
Parker added that Murray had been an “ideal steward” of the book, and had returned it in excellent condition.
The story, she said, is a beautiful example of the power and value that libraries can have.
“Books are very personal to people, and this is the very ideal story of the book that’s right for you — this was not part of his studies at UBC, he was an engineering student, this was part of his life’s interest,” she said.
“That is exactly what a library is for, is to provide you with means of pursuing those interests. It’s a life-long learning journey that he embarked on self-assigned.”
That said, Parker urged others book lovers not to try the same thing as Murray did.
“If you do have an overdue book, you don’t have to wait that long,” she said.
“We just really want the book back.”
Murray, meanwhile, has picked himself up a brand new copy of the book, which remains in print through major booksellers.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
B.C. man returns library book 64 years late, doesn’t feel guilty: ‘It was gold’
