Have you ever submerged yourself in your work so deeply that the rest of the world melted into the background? That’s what writing a dissertation is like. You dive into research and only come up for air when you absolutely have to. Case in point: A TikToker amassed 119 library books while working on her dissertation — and she received $12,000 worth of fines to prove it.
@historyhan The librarian who sent this email must have felt so powerful 🫠 #gradstudentlife #gradstudent ♬ Originalton – POV’s
In her viral video, TikToker @historyhan — a Ph.D. student studying medieval history — shared a screenshot of an email she received from the library, notifying her that after many failed attempts to reach her, it had declared all 119 books she checked out as “lost.”
The correspondence further noted that she was getting hit with a $100 flat rate for each lost book, digging her an $11,900 hole of fines. The video then flashed to piles and piles of library books as @historyhan noted they weren’t lost, she was just “hoarding them” for dissertation references.
Commenters were quick to light the history student up, saying that hoarding books isn’t much different than stealing them. The TikToker noted she’d had many of the books for a couple of years and was planning to return them once she was done using them. For their part, the library’s email mentioned they send out weekly reminders once a book is overdue, encouraging patrons to either renew or return. Once the book has been overdue for 30 days, it is considered lost.
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Now, granted, we’re not mathematicians, but if the library sends out a weekly email for every overdue book, and this woman had 119 of those bad boys chilling in her house, we figure she probably received more than one email prompting a renewal. Which begs two questions: Why not just renew the books? And, does @historyhan ever check her email???
In the end, the library proved to be forgiving, allowing the TikToker to pay a one-time charge of $20 to renew the books and continue working on what was almost the most expensive medieval history paper in, well, history.
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