After the assassination of JFK, the FBI asked

Lillian Bradshaw

, library director for the city of Dallas, for records of Lee Harvey Oswald's transactions at the library. The search took months, according to a current display at the

J. Erik Jonsson Central Library

, because circulation records, stored on microfiche, weren't indexed.

Eventually, library officials determined that Oswald had checked out a book that was overdue at the time of his death:

The Shark and the Sardines

, by Juan José Arévalo.

The 1961 book, written by a former president of Guatemala, was a pointed denunciation of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America. It's

been reprinted

, but copies of the original editions are now a rarity.

The one checked out by Oswald was never returned.