VANCOUVER -- Elizabeth Alexander spends her Tuesdays volunteering with the Friends of the Vancouver Public Library, sorting donated books and preparing them for the organization's regular book sales.

In just a few months on the job, she's come across all sorts of things inside the volumes she goes through.

"Sometimes, there's actually prayers, business cards, really adorable bookmarks, and you will, every once in a while, find letters," Alexander said.

Recently, she came across a letter that she just couldn't get out of her head.

The first thing she noticed about it was the penmanship. The unlined paper was completely full of words, all neatly laid out in straight lines across the page.

"Mein lieber Peter," the note began in German, a language Alexander doesn't speak.

As she scanned the letter, she saw one of the few German words she recognizes: "Weihnachten." Christmas Eve.

"The fact that I saw the German word for Christmas popping up in the letter, I just, I had to know," Alexander said.

She asked a friend to translate the letter, which bears the date "30.11.89" at the top. The translation just made Alexander more curious.

"Wish you and Janis a Merry Christmas," the letter reads. "Will you fly to Calgary again? I'm sending this book I recently brought from Siga. Ordered it from Blankenezer Buchhandlung (a bookstore). They blundered - after waiting 10 days - they had ordered the same German copy. The second one will go to Hannes for christmas. But unfortunately, weeks have gone by and only yesterday did I receive the English copy. Too late to not send by air mail. Hopefully it will arrive. One shouldn't put a letter in, but I'll risk it. Hopefully, after all that, you haven't already read it?! I'm busy with doctors and tests - awful. Much love, Mother"

Alexander said her interpretation of the note is that it was placed in the English copy of the book, which the bookstore had failed to order in time, forcing the letter-writer to send it via air mail.

"The woman was 'taking a risk,' as she says in the letter," Alexander said. "She's taking a risk by putting it in the book. And I was thinking to myself, well, if the son got it, wouldn't he take it out and put it somewhere? Or maybe he would put it back in the book and keep it there for safe keeping, but that made me wonder all the more because it's Christmas."

Now, she's hoping to track down Peter or someone from his family to try to answer her unanswered questions.

But, there's a problem. Alexander can't remember what book she found the letter in. She wishes she made a note of it at the time, but she didn't.

"I just can't remember," she said. "I only remember that it was a hard-cover book, and when you hold the paper in the light, you can see an impression from - I think it was from - the inside of the cover, as if it had been in there for a long, long time."

She knows she worked in three sections that day: biography/memoir, religion/spirituality and self-help.

Alexander hopes she can find Peter or a member of his family to return the letter. She said she doubts the letter's author is still alive 30 years after writing it, though anything is possible.

"The fact that she was mentioning going through tests - medical tests - she was maybe sick, so she's probably passed on," Alexander said. "Maybe Peter already read it and someone donated the book and he forgot about the letter. I don't know. But I would very much like to at least have the family notified. If they care, I've got it. Here it is. If you don't care, that's fine, but I just want to try."

"In an ideal world - it's December, it's Christmas - I'd like for this to be a positive outcome," she said. "It doesn't have to be perfect. I don't believe in perfect. I just want it to be positive."