Pro-tip for you today: if the library says you haven't returned a book (but you're pretty sure you have) and you've turned the house upside down and still haven't found it...then go and see if it's in the library sitting on a shelf!
We go to the library at least once a week and check out a lot of books. There were three that we had used for school last year (one for science and two for history) that I was pretty sure had gotten returned before the end of the school year. But they were still on my account.
I just kept renewing them and hoping that they would turn up under a pile of blankets or something. But one of the books was renewed so many times and was so late that they just billed me for the full cost of the book! That was finally the kick in the butt I needed to do some more digging.
I went to the three libraries that we frequent, because I have no idea which one I would have returned it to, and checked their shelves. I had even written down the bar-codes so I could make sure I wasn't just finding a duplicate copy instead of the one I checked out.
At the last library I found all three of my overdue books in the exact place you would have expected them to be reshelved after being checked in. Except apparently they didn't actually get scanned in before being put away!
Thankfully the librarian was very understanding and apologetic and removed all fines from my account. I've been taking my kids to the public library on a weekly basis for the past 10 years and this is not the first time this has happened to us. It's so frustrating. I think from now on I'm going to try and return books at the same location every time. Hopefully that will make the search and resolution easier the next time it (hopefully doesn't) happen.
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