"Claimed Returned": My Library Limbo

The other day I returned a few items to my local library. Checking my account online the next day (I wanted to see if I book I had reserved had come in) I discovered that one of the items I had shoved through the slot in the library the day before had not been checked in, and was showing up in my account as having not been returned.

The next morning, which was yesterday, I reported the problem to a librarian, and she made a note of it. Later on, I went to the library again to pick up the book I had reserved, which had finally arrived after being "in transit" for a week. Since I noticed that my account was still showing the item I had returned as one of my "check outs," I asked the fellow at the desk what was up. He explained that there would now be a four month search for the item, a search that was further complicated by the fact that the item, something else I'd reserved, had come from another library branch. I was calm. I was polite. But when I asked how something I'd returned the day before could go missing, the young man became somewhat exasperated, and went into the four month-long bureaucratic process the library had in place to locate items that are "claimed returned," the category which, through no fault of my own, I now find myself in: I am now a library user who "claims" to have returned something. Ouch! 

Afterwards, I wondered how many other items that are slipped through library slots in good faith are "claimed returned," and how many library users get stuck with the bill when--poof!--the items simply vanish. Searching the web for others caught in the surreal "claimed returned" world, I found this:

The book check in [the library] has similarly been “upgraded”. You simply push the books through a chute and it lands in a box on the other side. Gone are the days when I could wait and watch as the librarian checks in my family’s books. I do this because on a couple of occasions we have returned books the “upgraded” way, only to find out later than the books were for some reason not checked in and we were on the hook for a late fine. As I am an upstanding library citizen I do detest late fines, but when you really don’t have the book, I get steamed.

If the item, which I'm 100% certain went through the slot, never shows up, and I end up having to pay for it in order to retain my library privileges, believe me, I'll be pretty steamed too.