Borrowers line up for Harry's last broom ride

Awaiting the last installment of quidditch tournaments, capes that make people disappear into thin air, pranks by the Weasley twins and all varieties of magical creatures, Harry Potter fans in Carson Valley are already lining up for the seventh installment of the popular book series.

"There are 69 people on the (book reservation) list and I have an additional 10 to 12 for the audiobook when it comes out," said Maggie Rusmisel, a library technician at the Douglas County Public Library in Minden. The library started adding names to a Harry Potter waiting list in February.

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" is the seventh and last installment of the book series that chronicles the life of a young wizard during his years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The book will be released Saturday at 12:01 a.m.

Despite the media frenzy surrounding the publication of the last Potter book, Douglas County Librarian Louise Davis said J.K. Rowling's narratives aren't the only books inspiring people to line up well in advance of a book's publication date.

"I think what happens is there are some writers who only publish once a year or every other year," Davis said. "Because they publish longer between books, as soon as dates are announced people start lining up and saying they want to read that book."

Davis said waiting lists for books are quite common and already has patrons on a waiting list for Sue Grafton's "T Is For Trespass" due to be published in December. One of the longest waiting lists she's ever seen for a book was for "The Shelters of Stone," the fifth book in Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series that began with "The Clan of the Cave Bear."

"Harry Potter is a phenomenon because it was a children's book they didn't know was going to take off the way it did," Davis said. "I don't think anyone expected the first time it came out that it was going to do as well as it did."

It's been two years since the last Potter book, and Rusmisel said the library has seen an increase in patrons checking out the first six books.

"They're trying to reread and catch up," she said. Rusmisel said the library has two to three copies of each book in the series, and one to two of each audiobook.

Readers have watched Harry Potter grow from an 11-year-old novice wizard in the first book, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" to an 18-year-old who has fought the dark wizard, Lord Voldemort. The sixth book, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," released in the summer of 2005 left readers hanging with the death of Hogwart's headmaster Dumbledore and Harry vowing not to return for his last year of school.

Davis said she expects readers left hanging at the end of book six are particularly anxious to get a hold of the book, but said she thinks people would be lining up for the book with or without a cliff hanger.

"I think people identify somehow with the characters and they just want to know what happens next," she said. "I think we're just wired that way as human beings."

Box:

To celebrate the release of the new Harry Potter book the library is planning a party for 4 p.m. July 28. The event will include a quidditch tournament - the game invented by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling that includes players on flying broomsticks - between Gryffindor House and Slytherin House, two teams from the Potter series.

Participants in grades 6 through 12 are welcome to attend the event, which is sponsored by the Friends of the Douglas County Public Library. Participants should register for the party by July 27. For information, call 782-9841.