NATCHEZ &045; It’s a mystery.

When Michele Anderson started to pull a mystery novel off the shelf Tuesday at Armstrong Library, she noticed a bulge under the dust jacket. And with her background in library work she had to check it out.

&uot;I felt something in there, and from my time working here (Anderson worked cataloguing books at the library in the late ’80s and early ’90s) I just had to straighten it out and felt in there and pulled it out,&uot; Anderson said. &uot;I thought, ‘Whoa. Wait a minute,’ and I took it to the librarian downstairs.&uot;

&uot;It&uot; was a substantial sum of money, and Anderson and Susan Cassagne, the library’s director, are trying to identify the money’s rightful owner so they can return it.

&uot;We want to make an effort to find whose money it is so we can give it back,&uot; Cassagne said.

Cassagne asked that details, such as the amount of money and the title of the book it was found in, not be included in this story so that she can identify the money’s rightful owner. Anyone who thinks they may have left money in a book they checked out more than a year ago can contact the library.

Identifying that owner might be more difficult than one would think, because the Natchez-Adams Wilkinson Library System doesn’t keep records of which books have been checked out by particular patrons in the past. Only those books currently checked out are linked to the patron who has them.

Under the USA PATRIOT Act, federal authorities can compel libraries to turn over records regarding which books patrons have checked out.

The American Library Association has issued statements saying that this constitutes a violation of patrons’ right to privacy. Consequently, many libraries do not keep past records of check outs. Since they don’t have the information, they can’t be compelled to produce it for the authorities.

&uot;Because of the USA PATRIOT Act, we don’t keep that information,&uot; Cassagne said. &uot;We think that would violate patron privacy. If the FBI walks in and asks for a patron’s history, I don’t know that.&uot;

For most books, the Armstrong library would know who the last person to check it out was. But this book, a mystery novel, hadn’t been checked out since March 2004, when the library moved to a new system of tracking books.

Records from before then aren’t available. Before March 2004, the book was checked out 45 times.

As if all that weren’t complicated enough, there’s the matter of what to do with the money if it isn’t claimed. Cassagne found an opinion from the Mississippi Attorney General’s office about a similar case.

In that case, money was found in a paperback on an exchange table, where patrons were invited to leave old books and pick up any they wanted. But since those books were not the property of the library, the opinion found the money wasn’t either and one lucky patron got $1,100 out of the deal.

Cassagne said she believes if the money is not claimed it is the property of the library, though she said she would like to thank Anderson in some form.

Cassagne said this isn’t the most unusual thing she’s found in a library book.

&uot;I found a spaghetti noodle once,&uot; Cassagne said. &uot;We find a lot of love letters, pictures, that sort of thing.&uot;