If you tucked nearly $300 into a library book and then returned the book to the library, what do you think your chances would be of seeing the money again?

Ask Linda Ferguson of Brooklyn Park. She would tell you it's excellent.

"If there's any place I feel comfortable about getting my money back, it would be the library," Ferguson said. "Librarians are honest. They want to help people."

In fact, librarians have helped reunite many people with misplaced possessions, said Carla Knutson Biermaier, who handles Hennepin County Library communications.

Photographs and bookmarks are the items most often left in books, but librarians have also found gift cards, membership cards, tax forms, bills, hair clips, nail files and more. One book even contained a death certificate, Biermaier said.

"We do try to reunite people with personal items they've left in books," she said. "It doesn't happen terribly often, but when it does happen, we try to find out who the last person to check out the book was."

Earlier this fall, Ferguson's daughter gave her an envelope containing $300 as Ferguson was making plans to attend her 50th high school class reunion in Chicago. Her daughter told her, "Mom, have a great time!"

Ferguson was busy, so she placed the envelope on her dresser and forgot about it. Two weeks later, her grandson needed some cash, so she took $30 out of the envelope and gave it to him. That made her think about the security of the money, Ferguson said.

"I have a 5-year-old granddaughter who spends a lot of time here," she said. "She could get into the money and play with it, draw on it, or who knows what. I finally found my garage remote in her toybox."

So, Ferguson tucked the money away, but when she began packing for her trip, she couldn't find it.

"I looked everywhere," she said. "I looked in places it might be. I looked in places you know it wouldn't be. I was kind of afraid I'd put it in a newspaper and thrown it out."

Since the newspapers had already been hauled away for recycling, Ferguson decided to call the library because she might have placed the cash inside a book. No money had been found, she said.

When she returned from Chicago, after renewing friendships and seeing people she hadn't seen for years, Ferguson found a voice mail message telling her to call an officer at the Hennepin County Library. She called, and the officer asked her if she knew what the call might be about.

"Money?" she asked.

Her guess was correct. After telling the man that she had lost $270 and thought she might have put it in a library book, he told her the money had been found at the Maple Grove Library and would be waiting for her at the Brookdale Library.

"I don't know how many places or people it had gone through," she said. "I don't know exactly what happened. But I knew I had to write a letter to the library to thank them for returning it.

"One of my friends told me I'd never see the money again. [Getting the money back] vindicated my confidence in people and in the library system."

Comment on this story at our website, www.mnsun.com.

When she returned from Chicago, after renewing friendships and seeing people she hadn't seen for years, Ferguson found a voice mail message telling her to call an officer at the Hennepin County Library. She called, and the officer asked her if she knew what the call might be about.

"Money?" she asked.

Her guess was correct. After telling the man that she had lost $270 and thought she might have put it in a library book, he told her the money had been found at the Maple Grove Library and would be waiting for her at the Brookdale Library.

"I don't know how many places or people it had gone through," she said. "I don't know exactly what happened. But I knew I had to write a letter to the library to thank them for returning it.

"One of my friends told me I'd never see the money again. [Getting the money back] vindicated my confidence in people and in the library system."

Comment on this story at our website, www.mnsun.com.