A Library with a Blue Book? Early memories from a friend

As I was browsing around for some early whitebox supplements, q popped in. After discussing what I was looking at, he had an amusing anecdote. To protect the less than innocent, names have been changed and my responses have been removed.

q has a copy of the early blue book (pre ‘basic’)
q says, “I stole mine from the village library”
q says, “I checked it out at one point, and then months later checked it out again, and I had been the only person to check it out”
q says, “I was worried they would purge it.”
q says, “So I stole it to save it.”
q, chaotic neutral

My home town library didn’t have copies of any D&D materials. Finding a rule book in the library in that era is astonishing. I applaud the library staff for including it. Granted, q wasn’t an upstanding citizen but he has his alignment down even if it came from later editions.