This is an Odd Verb Use.

In a book review in the NYT this Sunday we learn that Liz Murray's father was "continually renewing his library card in a new name because he never returned the books"  Initially, this struck me as odd.  How do you renew something yet change the name? 

Then I thought that the reviewer, Tara McKelvey, was unaware of the difference between renewing and reapplying. That seemed unlikely because she is

a fellow with the Alicia Patterson Foundation, is a frequent contributor to the Book Review and the author of “Monstering: Inside America’s Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War.”

Then I thought the editor was unaware of the difference, which also seemed unlikely because it's the NY Times.

Then I thought, aha, the memoir or parts of it are fake.  I checked, however, and Murray wrote applying not renewing in different names. 

So what you ask? It is more evidence that the decision to reduce copy editing was wrong.