Library Books That ‘Walk’ : Public service: In a time of shrinking budgets and other recession-related woes, librarians are getting tougher about the age-old problem of unreturned volumes.

ANAHEIM — There’s the man who checked out “All About Elvis” from the Anaheim Central Library some 2,560 days ago and kept it. And kept it.

At 10 cents a day he would owe about $256, except that in September, 1986, he also checked out “The Boy Who Dared to Rock” and the definitive “Elvis.” If not for the kindness of librarians, who tend to be a forgiving lot, he would have to pay some $770 in overdue fines--more than enough for a round-trip sally to The King’s Graceland Mansion in Memphis--if he brought the books back today.

Then there’s the Anaheim woman who borrowed “Raquel Welch: Sex Symbol to Superstar” at least 93 months ago and never returned it. And the Garden Grove kid who signed out “The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash” in the summer of 1985. And the would-be Hemingway who checked out “How to Write a Novel” in February, 1987.

As if libraries don’t have enough to contend with these days--shrinking staffs, branches open only two days a week, homeless lobby loiterers--it seems more people keep walking off with books. Which is fine, except that they don’t bring them back.

Librarians are not taking this lying down. Outsmarting the “biblioklept” requires pluck, stick-to-itiveness and a willingness to try tactics that are, excuse the pun, novel.

Many librarians are hiring collection agencies that specialize in tracking down sticky-fingered book borrowers. Some use computers that automatically telephone people whose books are overdue and remind them to bring the books back. Some ask Boy Scouts to pen polite letters. Others have recruited fast-food restaurants to trade burgers for overdue books. The Placentia Library actually had a police detective track down a man who borrowed 35 art books, worth some $700, and subsequently “lost” them.

“It’s a crazy business we’re in,” said Huntington Beach library director Ron Hayden. “Can you imagine another business where you basically take someone’s word that they’ll bring your property back?”

People who borrow books but never return them have been the bane of public libraries for years. Articles in library trade journals on the subject date as far back as the 1880s, with titles like “Upping the Ante on Overdues” and “Book ‘Em, or Case of the Missing Book.”

A sluggish economy, though, always makes the problem worse, library officials say. When times get tough, book-buying budgets dry up. So do family budgets, which means more people borrow books from the library. Which means that more books aren’t returned or, in the librarian’s lexicon, “walk.”

Popular titles that have disappeared from the shelves of Orange County’s 51 libraries over the last six years include “What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women,” “The Joy of Sex” (a clear favorite among those who keep books, librarians say), the “Beverly Hills Diet Book” and Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax,” whose theme, ironically, teaches children to be responsible with stuff that isn’t theirs.

Oft-kept authors: fright writer Stephen King, children’s scribe Judy Blume and romance novelist Sydney Sheldon.

“We don’t even try to order anything on Madonna or Michael Jackson anymore. They just go,” said Peggy Burkich, circulation supervisor for the library in Placentia and as such is the unofficial tracker of missing tomes.

Precise tallies are hard to come by, but a handful of studies by library researchers around the country suggest that between 0.5% and 3% of all books and other materials checked out are never checked back in.

Doesn’t sound like much until you consider this:

Between July, 1992, and June, 1993, the 27 libraries in the Orange County system checked out 6,858,000 items, most of them books. Using the library trade’s most conservative estimate--0.5%--that’s roughly 34,000 books that never made it back to the shelf. Factor in the cost of an average hardback today and the losses quickly add up.

“Which is exactly why we’ve hired a collection agency,” said Dan Josslin, regional manager for the county-operated libraries.

Josslin and other librarians say few libraries know exactly how many books “walk” every year. Because the vast majority of books do come back, keeping up with the returns as well as new releases is a difficult task for overburdened staffs.

In addition, most libraries in recent years have become computerized. As a result, records of books checked out before the computers were installed are often stashed away in basement archives. In fact, most librarians confess they usually don’t discover missing books until a reader makes an inquiry. And the sad fact is, after a book is several months overdue and the borrower has refused to come forward, most libraries lose hope of ever getting the book back and write it off.

“Most librarians are forced to do so many jobs that something’s got to give,” said Robert Burgin, an associate professor in the library school at North Carolina Central who has conducted surveys on overdue books. If a library loses 2% of its books every year, Burgin said, “that’s just part and parcel of being a library.”

Huntington Beach has one of the few library systems in Orange County that closely monitors overdue books. “We take it much more seriously than other libraries,” said Hayden, the Huntington Beach library director.

In fiscal year 1992-93, library patrons in Huntington Beach kept nearly 5,100 titles. The price tag: $71,890. The year before: 4,800 books worth $62,000.

By comparison, the average bank robbery nets about $3,200, according to U.S. Department of Justice statistics. Measured in sheer dollar loss, $62,000 in unreturned library books is equivalent to 19 bank robberies.

What’s more, if you apply the industry’s most conservative figures to the 161 million books checked out by all public libraries in California in fiscal year 1991-92, the number of unreturned books would approach 805,000. Nationwide, it’s undoubtedly into the millions, said George Needham, executive director of the American Public Library Assn. in Chicago.

If you take the number of books and multiply it times today’s average $20 cover price, “it could put a little dent in the national deficit,” Needham said.

Wanda Weldon, whose Irvine consulting firm specializes in helping libraries retrieve overdue books, said, “The public doesn’t realize what they’re doing when they keep that one book or two.” Because somebody else is doing the same thing. And someone else. And someone else. And so on.

“It’s not so much that the public is out to take the books,” said Weldon. People simply forget they have them. Or they move. Or they lose them and are too embarrassed to report it. Or sometimes, she said, they simply can’t bring themselves to part with them.

Who are the culprits?

With the exception of senior citizens--who become “apologetic if they have to pay even a 20-cent late fine on a book,” according to Margaret-Rose Prete from the Anaheim Central Library--anyone is a candidate. Teachers. Accountants. Artists. In fact, a member of Friends of the Library in Placentia had kept books for more than two years despite repeated requests from the library to bring them back.

“People are funny about library books,” Weldon said. “They know their taxes help support the libraries, so in some way they feel like the book is more their book than it really is.”

“It’s just like graffiti and everything else,” said Carolann Tassios, Yorba Linda’s library director. “People’s attitudes toward other people’s property has changed.”

Whatever the reasons, all of this has put strapped-for-cash librarians in a dilemma.

In the past, librarians tended to be understanding of scofflaw book borrowers. But the rising cost of books, shrinking budgets and increasing number of borrowers is forcing them to act more like Dirty Harry and less like Mister Rogers.

Still a merciful bunch, librarians say they will forgo overdue fines--even after several years--as long as they get their books back. They are even protective of their patrons, refusing to provide names of people who borrow their books--even the ones who don’t return them.

“Librarians aren’t good at this sort of thing,” said Elizabeth Minter, Placentia’s library director. “Every bit of our training is in helping people.”

“They do have to get tougher,” said Weldon, the Irvine consultant. “And they are--just like everything else in this world.”

Of course, there’s another solution, Weldon said: “People should just bring their books back . . .

“On time.”

A Fine Situation for O.C. Libraries

Orange County’s libraries have collected more than $1.6 million in fines for fiscal 1992-93 for overdue books. In addition to the county system, there are nine city-run or special district library systems.

No. of Fines Percent Library libraries collected of budget Orange County system 27 $861,000 3.2% Anaheim* 5 90,000 2.2 Buena Park* 1 75,000 4.2 Fullerton** 2 78,000 3.0 Huntington Beach* 4 120,000 3.6 Newport Beach 4 142,000 4.0 Orange* 3 100,000 4.2 Placentia*** 1 26,000 2.0 Santa Ana 3 92,000 2.0 Yorba Linda 1 66,000 3.9 Total 51 1.65 million 3.2 How Other Libraries Compare New York City 82 $1.3 million 1.6% Boston 26 137,000 0.5 San Francisco 27 156,000 0.8 Los Angeles County 94 1.7 million 2.7

* Estimate collected in fiscal year 1992-93

** Includes miscellaneous fees

*** Projected for fiscal year 1993-94

Source: Individual library systems

Researched by JEFF BRAZIL / Los Angeles Times