In the Middle Ages, scientists were not in vain called “bookworms” – after all, books in those days were actually the only source of knowledge, and the more written sources a scientist used when doing their study, the more confidence the scientific community had in the resulting work.

However, some modern researchers use this principle too literally… The best proof of this is the wonderful video by TikToker @historyhan, a PhD student at Binghamton University, and a true book lover. Maybe too much so…

More info: TikTok

The author of the video is a PhD student writing her dissertation about medieval history

Image credits: historyhan

The student had been using many library books, hoarding them in her room for years

Image credits: historyhan

Image credits: historyhan

“The books aren’t lost, I’m just hoarding them until I finish my dissertation”

“Seriously, I’ve had the books for years lol. Not stolen, still in use. I’ve scanned lots of books, but in this case, they all came due at once! No one has requested them or I would return for sure!!! I’ve never replied to an email faster. A lesson was learned, I promise lol.”

Image credits: historyhan

Image credits: historyhan

Image credits: Jukka Zitting (not the actual photo)

@historyhan The librarian who sent this email must have felt so powerful 🫠 #gradstudentlife #gradstudent ♬ Originalton – POV’s

One day Hannah faced an almost $12K fine for 119 unreturned books as the library reported them ‘lost’

So, Hannah is a PhD student, and is actively writing her dissertation, using all possible book sources for this. The author’s dwelling is literally littered with books – especially since Hannah is studying medieval history. As befits a real scientist, immersed headlong in her research, the woman regularly ignored various annoying emails from the university library – until one day she accidentally opened one of these messages!

The contents of the email struck Hannah in much the same way that Galileo Galilei was struck when he first looked at Jupiter through a telescope. Or maybe when he received a letter from the Inquisition – after all, this email from the library has a lot in common with it. The fact is that after thirty days, library rules considered an unreturned book lost, and for this the user was served a fine of a hundred dollars.

Hannah had no less than 119 library books at home, which meant she had to fork out $11.9K in library fines! Just agree that’s a very impressive amount. However, the author of the video does not agree at all with the the library clerks’ decision to consider the books that she did not return ‘lost’ or even ‘stolen’. After all, the historian was simply hoarding them until she finished her dissertation!

What’s more, in Hannah’s own words, she regularly put a reminder on her to-do list to return the books, but since this task had a low priority, it found itself buried under more important things almost every day. However, the end of the story turned out to be happy enough – like Galileo, Hannah managed to avoid serious punishment, and the library let her renew all of the 119 books for a ‘reasonable’ fee of $20.

Now that the situation has cleared up, the library has again allowed Hannah to use all the books that were previously overdue, without any restrictions. According to university rules, the limit for graduate students is 200 books. Hopefully, this will help the researcher with completing her study on time – and, perhaps, becoming no less famous in world science than Galileo Galilei. And yet it moves…

The commenters, however, just found this story funny, in no way condemning Hannah – especially since the student admitted in the comments that she usually receives notifications if someone else requested the book she borrowed. So, over the years that the books lay in her room, not one of the 119 was in demand by other library users. Either way, the original poster swore she’d learned her lesson. Probably, now the task of returning the books to the library will have the highest priority… By the way, have you, our dear readers, ever found yourself in a similar situation?

People in the comments were just cracking up at this story while Hannah promised that she learned her lesson quite well

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