Libraries are full of secrets. Some are left undiscovered forever on dusty shelves, and some accidentally go viral. The latter is what happened when 23-year-old library employee Georgia Grainger tweeted about her latest discovery at the Charleston Community Library in Dundee, Scotland. After only working there for a few weeks, she ended up solving a mystery that includes dozens of secret codes marked in romance novels set in World War II era Britain, mainly read by an elderly female clientele.
Seems strange, right? Why page 7? And why was this particular page underlined in the same manner?
Grainger had her own theories at first.
Grainger probably assumed that another Zodiac Killer was stalking the library -- either preying on senior citizens or was one himself -- similar to how the original Zodiac Killer was obsessed with cryptic numerology and hieroglyphs.
The young detective looked at other books and found that the trend continued in volumes of similar genre or title by authors like Ellie Dean or Lizzie Lane.
Grainger eventually decided to alert her manager about the apparent rogue killer, but instead of making an arrest, she learned something new.
As it turns out, some of the library’s older patrons weren’t aware of the handy dandy invention called a digital filing system, which automatically links which books they’ve read to their library card. Many have been making their personal markings for decades, and are well-accustomed to their own system.
Grainger told BBC, “I have a bit of an overactive imagination, so I was coming up with all sorts of theories, like there was a serial killer in the library or spies using it as a secret code to communicate. The head librarian told me it was a lot less exciting than what I thought."
“It's different symbols for different people,” she continued. “Some write their initials inside the front or back covers or some people circle their house number."
When Grainger started tweeting about her discovery, others came forward to share their own coding systems.
While partly annoyed that folks are, in a way, vandalizing public library books, Grainger finds the ordeal pretty amusing, and even bestowed a warning to librarians everywhere that others might be inspired to create their own secret codes in borrowed books.