An ornate pencil drawing of a dragon; a floral postcard congratulating a 40th birthday, never sent by mail; a silver hook.
All of these items share one connection: they were left in books returned to the Oakland Public Library.
Librarian Sharon McKellar compiles the found artifacts and posts them on the library’s website in a collection titled “Found in a library book.”
McKellar was fascinated by the things she found in the library and the anonymous glimpses into people’s lives they offered. She thought the public might be interested, too, so almost 10 years ago she started adding found articles to the library’s website.
“I had always collected little things that I found in library books and I knew other people did too,” McKellar said. “That’s how it started. It was quite simple, I was inspired by a magazine called Found Magazine.“
Oakland librarians send McKellar the things they find, which he then scans and adds to the library’s growing online collection.
The archive now includes over 350 articles of all kinds. There are yellowing photographs, bits of schoolwork, bus tickets, love notes and postcards among the collection.
Many of the items appear to come from children. in a notea boy praises “Borok Oboma” for his speeches and family devotion. In otherthe writer Ana asks someone in Spanish to check “yes”, “no” or “maybe” to say if the two are friends (none of the bubbles are checked).
Some of McKellar’s favorites seem to have been left behind on purpose.
“There is a whole written down Matilda by Roald Dahl, where a young man placed Post-it notes throughout the book with just things that occurred to them while reading it, like, ‘Wow! I can’t believe the teacher did this,'” he said.
Many of the items seem mysterious with no context or origins, and for more than nine years no one has come forward to claim one, McKellar said.
That changed last month, when Jamee Longacre was looking at part of the collection and a green sticky note caught her eye.
“I even jokingly leaned closer to my computer screen,” Longacre said, trying to examine it. He recognized the wild letters in his own handwriting.
Longacre is from nearby Concord, California. She said that she remembered writing the note, but that she did not remember the context or who she had given it to. She said that she had not been to one of the Oakland libraries.
“I laughed a little,” Longacre said, when he realized the note was his. He walked over to McKellar to claim it.
For McKellar, the fun of the project lies in imagining the possible history of an item and the person to whom it belonged.
“It allows us to be a little nosy. In a very anonymous way, it’s like reading people’s secret diaries a little bit but not knowing who they are,” or violating someone’s trust, he said.
She said the library might one day hold a writing contest and ask people to submit stories to go along with the items found.
Beneath McKellar’s desk, he keeps a box with more found notes waiting to be added to the website. Between meetings, he often pulls out a note, photo, or drawing and examines it.
“I wonder if it was a precious item to someone,” McKellar said. “Does the person miss that article? Does he regret losing it or was he careless with it because he didn’t actually share those deep, deep feelings with the person who wrote [it]?” she wonders.
It will then scan the item and add it to the collection.
NPR’s Vanessa Leroy contributed to the digital version of this story.