556 Unusual Suspects: The Case of Insider Theft in Research Libraries and Special Collections Todd Samuelson, Laura Sare, and Catherine Coker Todd Samuelson is Rare Books and Manuscripts Curator in Cushing Memorial Library & Archives, Laura Sare is Government Information Librarian in Sterling C. Evans Library, and Catherine Coker is Coordina- tor of Research Services in Cushing Memorial Library & Archives, all at Texas A&M University; e-mail: tsamuels@library.tamu.edu, lsare@library.tamu.edu, ccoker@library.tamu.edu. © 2012 Todd Samuelson, Laura Sare, and Catherine Coker The widespread theft of collection materials, including rare and unique items, continues to be an issue of great concern to libraries of all types. The potential loss of such items threatens not only an institution’s opera- tions but, in many cases, global cultural heritage. Despite an increasingly open attitude among institutions regarding sharing information about lost items and suspected perpetrators, little scholarship has examined such thefts quantitatively in an effort to draw conclusions about how such incidents occur and how best to prevent them. This paper describes a project that examines data from over twenty years of reported library theft cases in libraries and special collections to determine how frequently such losses are perpetrated by library insiders. ver the past three decades, and the last several years in particular, research libraries and their allied special collec- tions have seen a notable shift in attitudes and practices regarding thefts from their collections. Not only have institutions begun to acknowledge the threat of theft more actively, but greater resources have been dedicated to establishing and main- taining security procedures. The stigma associated with publicly acknowledging theft has also decreased; rather than react- ing in embarrassment or with fear about the potential disapproval of donors or administrators, many institutions now respond to the unfortunate reality of theft with openness and transparency. This climate of disclosure frequently extends to the active pursuit of thieves, including the willingness among libraries to press charges or to publicize the loss in an effort to recover the stolen artifact.1 Libraries have begun to engage in collaboration among themselves and with other groups, such as associations of book dealers, in producing databases and lists that are commonly disseminated online in an ef- fort to lead to the identification of stolen material and to ensure its return.2 Though library theft is being discussed more frequently as a major issue in the discipline, many elements related to theft remain poorly understood. Echoing an evaluation he first made in 1994,3 Sydney C. Van Nort argued in The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences (2010) that “there is no good statistical information crl-307 The Case of Insider Theft in Research Libraries and Special Collections 557 on items reported missing from libraries available at this time.”4 The lack of quan- tifiable detail about library theft extends from information regarding the items that are reported missing (leaving aside the volumes and artifacts that are never discovered or publicized as stolen) to in- formation about other aspects of the theft. Even such fundamental details as the most commonly targeted institutions or types of material and the profile of a likely thief are not adequately understood. Much of the discussion about the prob- lem of library theft is limited to rehearsals of notorious cases of theft (or accounts of theft written by those who have experi- enced it in their own institutions). While these narratives are valuable and provide an opening to the larger conversation about theft prevention and response, they provide only a limited glimpse of the full scope of book theft faced by American and international institutions.5 Many of the at- tempts to draw conclusions about library theft on the whole are based on speculation extrapolated from a scattering of individual cases, rather than on a systematic effort to chart known instances of the issue. One element of library theft that has been acknowledged as particularly dif- ficult to confront is the issue of insider theft. These cases, perpetrated by those with privileged relationships with an institution, are known to have been committed by library directors and other administrators, permanent faculty and staff, and part-time or temporary workers. Such thefts have also been accomplished by those with temporary access, from janitors and subcontractors to volunteers, docents, and interns. Theft from within an institution has long been recognized as a threat, but one for which solutions are particularly unforthcoming. Daniel Traister suggested that insider theft be- devils the profession because it involves the collections at the moment when they are “vulnerable to their most dangerous potential predators: ourselves.”6 Because of their knowledge of collec- tions and security, those with institutional familiarity are capable of finding weak- nesses in security, often by targeting uncatalogued materials or destroying physical or electronic records. Due to their intimacy with the institution’s procedures and precautions (having sometimes been involved in their creation), insiders are familiar with points of vulnerability that may be impossible to protect. It is difficult to imagine lengths to which a library could go that could not be circumvented by a committed insider. Though library and security professionals have debated the extent of insider theft relative to all library losses, these authorities agree that the issue of the looting of collections by library associates is both extremely dif- ficult to prevent and poorly understood. One recent appraisal of the professional literature regarding insider theft acknowl- edged that “the lack of research and study on the topic represents a significant gap in professional knowledge.”7 But how prevalent is insider theft in American libraries, both measured as a percentage of total incidents and by the total value stolen? Without attempting to quantify the problem, is it possible to gauge the extent of insider theft or to determine the security resources that should be devoted to its prevention? Due to the privileged position of these thieves—many of whom have success- fully prevented any detection of their efforts to pillage the collections for which they are responsible—it is likely that a wholly accurate depiction of the prob- lem may never be possible. Yet a partial answer to the question, drawn from data gathered from known cases of library theft, will provide a far better opening to debate than one based upon speculation extrapolated from discrete occurrences. The Prevalence of Insider Theft In a groundbreaking essay published in Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarian- ship, David S. Zeidberg, then Head of Special Collections at UCLA and now Avery Director of the Huntington Library, diagnosed the problem of library theft 558 College & Research Libraries November 2012 by pointing to figures associated, either professionally or academically, with the library.8 Zeidberg’s article, published in 1987, provided both a description of the problem and a prompt leading to many of the changes to library security seen in recent decades. In addition to describing the greater efforts of institutions to coordi- nate their responses to theft (both between libraries and libraries with booksellers) and the growth of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Security Committee, he also details the effects of an Association of Re- search Libraries SPEC Kit survey he wrote in 1983, which explored security policies among 118 libraries with particular atten- tion to procedures in special collections.9 Despite its influence, however, the arti- cle balks at detailing the scope of the prob- lem. At one point, Zeidberg estimates the scope of the problem by reporting upon a special conference at Oberlin College in 1983 dedicated to library theft, which “confirmed much of what we suspected about a library environment conducive to theft: the failure to share information about losses, open access to valuable collections, poor library designs, failure to prosecute thieves, and so forth.” He notes that a participant at the conference, unnamed in his narrative, “suggested that 25–35% of the thefts were ‘inside jobs.’”10 This is apparently a reference to Terry Be- langer, who, according to a Library Journal report of the Oberlin conference, gave a presentation that estimated “25 percent of the thefts are inside jobs, committed by students, professors, librarians, staff members, and janitors rather than profes- sional criminals.”11 More recently, other claims have been made regarding the prevalence of insider theft in world libraries. Rather than pro- viding more certainty about the problem of theft from within, however, these esti- mations mainly show the great variance between different experts’ assessments. At the higher end of the spectrum, “Ton Cremers, the voluble and forthright for- mer head of security at the Rijksmuseum and founder of the Museum Security Network … believes that ‘inside jobs’ account for upwards of 70 per cent of all library theft in Europe and 80 per cent in the US.”12 Similarly, in a recent survey of insider theft literature, Ross Griffiths and Andrew Krol argue that “75 percent of thefts from libraries” are perpetrated by insiders.13 A closer examination, however, suggests that this statistic may have no ba- sis in research. The percentage was drawn from Sydney Van Nort’s 1994 article, though the citation appears garbled.14 Apparently, the statistic is the result of a transcription error: in Van Nort’s article, the Library Journal review of the Oberlin Conference is quoted as “all but 25 percent of the thefts are inside jobs”15 (emphasis added), inverting the percentage. That such a vast discrepancy could go repeated and unchallenged merely shows how unstable our estimates of the scope of insider theft are. The Library Theft Database: A Methodology The Library Theft Database (LTD) project was established as a response to the lack of data from which to draw conclusions about this pressing issue. Beginning with online resources that publicize cases of library theft (including listservs such as EXLIBRIS, as well as the RBMS Security Committee’s “Listings of Missing and Stolen Library Materials” and “Incidents of Theft”) and extending to wider explo- ration, including extensive LexisNexis searches, the LTD team compiled informa- tion about publicized incidents of library theft for the years 1987–2010. While a later phase of the project may involve contact- ing institutions directly for more infor- mation about these cases, the database is currently limited to the details that have appeared in news reports announcing the loss of material or the arrest of suspects. This information is admittedly partial, particularly where conviction and sen- tencing of thieves are concerned, because the reports were often written before the conclusion of a trial or before a fuller pic- ture of the theft could be gathered. The Case of Insider Theft in Research Libraries and Special Collections 559 The Library Theft Database, which currently contains over three hundred re- cords, was designed in the attempt to pro- duce a qualitative picture of the state of library theft. The database itself includes fields centered on information about the suspect, the institution from which the objects were stolen, and specific details about the objects taken, including descrip- tion and value. The database also includes information about the sale or distribution and the recovery of stolen items, as well as the apprehension of suspects. Drop-down menus for several fields such as type of institution (examples: Research Library, Government Archive) were created for ease of data entry and as a way to limit the categories into manageable blocks of data. Additionally, where specific dates were not provided, if the month was known, the first day of that month was used, and where only the year was known, the first day of the first month of the year served as a data placeholder. A sample record from the database can be seen in figure 1. Attention was paid to the suspect’s relationship (if any) with the institution. For repeat offenders, a new record was created for unrelated incidents of theft, except in rare cases of ongoing theft over a period of time and large number of separate institutions. The project excludes instances of embezzlement or theft from personal libraries; the effort has been to detail artifact theft from institutional libraries. Despite the acknowledged in- completeness of the data represented by the project, the Library Theft Database provides a tool by which information related to these incidents—including the most notorious cases of library theft, but extending well beyond them—can be compared and enumerated. Examina- tion of the data will offer a glimpse of the fluid state of library losses over the past twenty-three years, a period of significant change in precautions and responses to theft among the included institutions. The present article attempts to illu- minate some of the issues surrounding insider theft by examining relevant cases from the Database. To limit the data to those records that contain the most complete information, the statistics will FIGURE 1 Sample Record 560 College & Research Libraries November 2012 be confined to the 179 occurrences that include named suspects, from the total 326 total records in the LTD. (The remaining 45 percent of publicized cases represented in the Database include initial announce- ments of theft, the discovery of the sale or mutilation of volumes, and even the recovery of books or plates that had not been previously discovered as miss- ing—in short, those instances in which insufficient evidence can be gathered to draw conclusions about the nature of the theft and particularly the identity of the perpetrator.) Our examination of these named allegations will provide statistical detail about the characteristics of the thief (including the percentage of occasions that can be shown to be insider theft), the nature of the institution, and the value of the thefts for each category. This initial attempt at providing statistical detail,16 though it may represent only a small por- tion of library thefts overall, provides a foundation for further analysis and action. From the data gathered in the Library Theft Database, as displayed in figure 2, only one third of known library thefts perpetrated by identifiable suspects can be shown to be insider thefts. For the purposes of this study, we determined that the following factors effectively determine the status of an “insider” in a theft: an intimate knowledge of the physical layout of the facility where materials are stored and a position of formalized trust within the institution, either as an employee or recurring visitor known to regular staff and with access to areas in which col- lection materials are housed (such as a maintenance or security contractor). The elements of our working definition are more restrictive than may be encountered in other studies, which may include fac- ulty or scholars who have a specialized and intimate knowledge of the material but who would have no direct or unsuper- vised access to collections. A recent article focused its attention upon all those with a close relationship with the institution, a group that extended to “trusted vendors, … board and committee members, and esteemed affiliates such as former staff, frequent patrons, and donors.”17 Our definition has been limited, rather, by the practical issues of access and opportunity: a potential insider would be in possession of detailed item information (material lo- cation and storage practices, for example) and the occasion to successfully steal an object or objects from the institution. We also determined that the location of the theft (that is to say, the institution) should be formally designated as a place of public access whose primary goal is research. This stipulation thus removed antiquarian dealers and private collec- tors from our general survey, though it is true that some individuals do allow free access to their collections for scholarly purposes.18 Further, various types of in- stitutions have several degrees of public traffic, access, and circulation restrictions, as well as different visiting audiences. To take into account these diverse factors, we differentiated seven types of institutions. In those cases where the same offender targeted multiple institutions, a “lead” or prosecuting institution was des- ignated to be the representative “type.” Thus our final select groups are these: University Special Collections; Indepen- dent Special Collections; Government Archives; Historical Society/Nonprofit; Research Libraries; City/County Librar- ies; and Museums. FIGURE 2 Insider Theft, as a Percentage of Total Occurrences Yes No Unknown 15.1% 32.6% 52.3% The Case of Insider Theft in Research Libraries and Special Collections 561 As table 1 makes clear, the wide differ- ences between institution types extends beyond audience and institutional pro- cedures to the type of material targeted by thieves. This table shows the occasions of insider theft and the value estimates attached to those instances, both as a total value and an average per theft. As might be expected, the institutions with the highest-value items were generally those who lost the most, both in terms of aggregate loss and by individual theft. These institutions were not the most fre- quently targeted, however; the number of lower-value thefts from research and city or county libraries suggest that book theft is frequently an opportunistic crime, while the less-frequent but higher-value thefts from special collections, archives, and historical repositories, in many cases, would have required more effort to achieve. It should be noted that the thefts included in this table do not represent the entire number represented in the Library Theft Database, but only the cases that included estimated values of the loss as part of the publicly released information. Table 2 displays similar information for thefts demonstrated to have been perpetrated by noninsiders. As might be expected, a great discrepancy in average loss value can be seen between special collections/archival institutions (which hold comparatively high-value artifacts) in comparison with general research or county libraries. In the case of the latter, the Database indicates that greater-value thefts are nearly always accompanied by a high volume of theft or length of time stealing library material such as textbooks TABLE 1 Insider Theft: Value Estimates Type of Institution Number of Thefts Total Value Estimate Value Average University Special Collections 8 $26,357,753 $3,294,718 Independent Special Collections 1 $500,000 500,000 Government Archives 5 $891,071 $178,214 Historical Society/Nonprofit 3 $2,102,000 $700,667 Research Library 9 $2,011,194 $223,466 City/County Library 11 $563,239 $51,204 Museum 2 $117,500 $58,750 TOTAL 39 $32,542,757 TABLE 2 Noninsider Theft: Value Estimates Type of Institution Number of Thefts Total Value Estimate Value Average University Special Collections 10 $23,535,000 $2,353,500 Independent Special Collections 1 $548,352 $548,352 Government Archives 8 $20,532,500 $2,566,562 Historical Society/Nonprofit 5 $193,000 $38,600 Research Library 11 $1,825,377 $163,943 City/County Library 18 $630,968 $35,053 TOTAL 53 $47,265,197 562 College & Research Libraries November 2012 or bestsellers. While the amounts of loss vary wildly between types of institutions, however, the value averages are relatively similar for insider and noninsider thefts (table 1 compared to table 2), suggesting that both insiders and outsiders have been successful in targeting these repositories, despite their greater security precautions. This equivalence is displayed quite starkly in table 3, which shows the aver- age total of thefts with value estimates across all institution types, compared between insider and outsider categories. One caveat that must be stated is that these numbers have been distorted to some degree by three outlier cases, which were each estimated, coincidentally, to value $20 million. In one of the three instances, the extreme high-value theft was shown to have been perpetrated by an insider. In 1992, Stephen Crawford, a former security guard at Stanford Univer- sity, was arrested for the theft of sculpture and artifacts belonging to the university, including more than 280 rare books dat- ing from the sixteenth century.19 Though the thefts occurred in the mid-1970s, the discovery and arrest of Crawford and recovery of the items occurred within the scope of the LTD team’s investigation. The other two extreme high-value thefts were committed by institutional outsiders. One of these cases is the famous account of Stephen Blumberg, which was narrated most thoroughly by Nicholas Basbanes in A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books.20 Blumberg’s spree took him to at least 154 institutions over numerous years; the list of books and manuscripts that he stole numbers more than 21,000. Though he stole from a wide variety of institutions, the decision was made to classify his theft in the “University Special Collections” category. The final theft estimated at $20 million relates to an original engrossed copy of the United States’ Bill of Rights stolen from the North Carolina statehouse dur- ing the Civil War. A Union soldier ap- parently looted the document in 1865 then sold it the following year. Though its “owner” made overtures to the state of North Carolina in 1925 and 1995, it was not recovered until 2003, when a broker attempted to sell it. The FBI was involved in the operation to recover the Bill of Rights and to restore it to its rightful place of honor. The removal of these high-value thefts changes the complexion of the data, both in terms of institutional averages and the insider theft totals. It may be instructive to examine the numbers without these outliers; if we were to disregard these three cases, the Insider Theft value estimate for University Special Collections drops to $6,357,753, or an average of $908,250; the Noninsider Theft value estimate for University Special Collections drops to $3,535,000, or an average of $392,778; and the Noninsider Theft value for Govern- ment Archives falls to $532,500, or an aver- age of $76,071. Ultimately, the Insider Theft Value Averages Total would also change drastically, to an average of $330,073 for Insider Thefts with value estimates, and to an average of $142,455 for Noninsider Thefts. The wide variances that these outliers represent provide a testament to the difficulty of establishing conclusive quantitative statements about insider theft: if such extreme high-value thefts are not discovered (or go unpublicized), the effects upon the final data can be dynamic. In figure 3, Research Libraries and University Special Collections are followed closely by City/County Libraries in number of thefts at 13, 13, and 11 respectively, out of a total of 58. In both Research Libraries and University Special Collections, most stolen items were sold, with eight records showing TABLE 3 Insider Theft Value Averages Total Insider Theft Insider $834,429 39 thefts with value estimates Noninsider $891,796 53 thefts with value estimates The Case of Insider Theft in Research Libraries and Special Collections 563 as items sold for University Special Col- lections and Research Libraries also with eight records, most by nonprofessional employees such as student workers or security guards, while City/County thefts had three records where the library direc- tor was the insider thief. Figure 5 shows the complete breakdown of job positions by insiders in general. In figure 4, Noninsider Theft by Insti- tution Type, City/County Libraries show the highest incidents of theft at 31 (36%) of a total 85 cases for this time period, followed by Research Libraries (17), University Special Collections (17), and Government Archives (13). While the data are limited to occasions reported by the media, some of the more complete news FIGURE 3 Insider Theft: Number of Thefts by Institution Type 4 11 13 5 9 3 13 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 Museum City/County Library Research Library Historical Society/Nonprofit Government Archives Independent Special Collec�on University Special Collec�ons FIGURE 4 Noninsider Theft: Number of Thefts by Institution Type 31 17 6 13 1 17 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 City/County Library Research Library Historical Society/Nonprofit Government Archives Independent Special Collec�on University Special Collec�ons 564 College & Research Libraries November 2012 articles show distinct trends. The City/ County thefts are interesting in that, while they do not house rare books, they are fre- quently targeted for their popular titles. At least nine accounts in the database include material stolen specifically for immediate sale, generally at small online outfits, eBay, or at flea markets and local book resellers. The value represented by these thefts is substantial because large numbers of books and CD/DVDs—fre- quently in the hundreds—would be sto- len, with theft values ranging from $8,000 to $87,000. In a similar case, a ring of thieves targeted high-priced textbooks.21 At least six of the news accounts include theft by hoarders, including two cases involving the discovery of stolen books after the suspect had died. One extreme case is that of Duncan Jevons, who stole over 40,000 books valued at over 100,000 pounds over a course of thirty years.22 In both motives—stealing for profit and stealing for self—many thieves use fraudulent means to obtain library cards (or use the identification of a second party, including their own child’s library card), as well as charging stolen materials to their own name. In the category of Research Libraries, five reports involve material stolen spe- cifically to sell; a few are linked to hoard- ers, including one record showing the student stole from the university library because he wanted to add to his own collection.23 Four other cases appeared to involve students who stole the books for coursework, due to the low amount of books stolen and value. University Spe- cial Collections were targeted as sources of high-value items; at least eight of the records show that material was sold to book dealers or auction houses. As for Government Archives, three records show that materials were sold. Interest- ingly, four instances of theft targeted the Library of Congress, and three victimized the National Archives. Prominent among these cases was Charles Merrill Mount, who stole around 200 documents from both intuitions.24 Table 4 shows the percentage of insider theft relevant to all known thefts, broken down by institution type. One conclusion suggested by the percentages included is that, as an institution’s security increases, the likelihood of insider theft does as well. Museums and Special Collections show higher percentages of insider theft because of the restricted access to mate- rials—which makes it that much more difficult for outsiders to gain entry for the purpose of stealing. In contrast, City/ County libraries show low instances of insider theft and appear to be targeted by outsiders seeking fast cash. Figure 5 suggests that the majority of known insider thefts were made by library staff (that is to say, nonlibrarians), followed by professional librarians, then security personnel. If the positions listed in the chart are categorized as profes- sional (in other words: faculty, directors, and librarians) and nonprofessional (that TABLE 4 Insider Theft: Percentage of Thefts by Known Thefts by Institution Insider Theft (Percentage) Total Known Thefts University Special Collections 13 (43.3%) 30 Independent Special Collections 3 (75%) 4 Government Archives 9 (40.9%) 22 Historical Society/Nonprofit 5 (45.4%) 11 Research Library 13 (41.9%) 31 City/County Library 11 (26.2%) 42 Museum 4 (100%) 4 The Case of Insider Theft in Research Libraries and Special Collections 565 is, library workers, student assistants, and guards), the cases are divided between eighteen (31%) professional to forty (69%) nonprofessional. Despite the high profile that thefts conducted by professional librarians receive, it is notable that over twice as many insider thieves are from nonprofessional, temporary, or informal members of staff (though the fact is likely of little consolation to the targeted institutions). In a number of cases, figures who may seem not to qualify as insiders were cat- egorized as such because of the unusual degree of access they were granted by institutional staff. For example, the re- searchers listed in figure 5 were contract specialists who gained extensive familiar- ity with the institutions they ultimately victimized. A notable example, Casriel Kaplin, was a rabbi who had gained ad- mittance to the rare books collection of London’s Beth Din Library; he took the opportunities afforded him as a special researcher with unusual access (he was a judge of divorce and conversion cases) to steal books from the collection and attempt to resell them.26 Similarly, spouses of library employees used their privileged position within the library or archive to obtain and then attempt to sell material later proven to be part of the collection. In one case, the theft was initially perpetrated by a husband who, seemingly motivated by a hoarder’s impulse, kept 3,200 stolen books in his own collection until his death, when his wife took some one hundred volumes to auction and sold them for 1.7 million dollars.27 Finally, figure 6 shows the comparison of known suspects to insider thefts ar- ranged ante-chronologically. These data include the period in which libraries began to approach theft more openly, showing greater willingness to publicize thefts from their institutions in an effort to recover stolen materials. The data gathered do not yet allow us to determine whether such recent efforts at openness, along with upgrades in se- curity technology for special collections, have made any significant difference in preventing theft. Further study with institutional data will be needed to draw firm conclusions. FIGURE 5 Insider Theft Affiliation Job Positions25 1 2 2 4 4 5 2 7 1 14 12 5 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 Unknown Spouses Researchers Volunteer/Interns Temp/Contract Labor Student Assistants Maintenance Security Guards Faculty Library Staff Professional Librarian Director/Head 566 College & Research Libraries November 2012 however, with a full two-thirds of the incidents of theft conducted by outsiders or unknown figures, and only 10 percent of total thefts (among those by known figures) being perpetrated by professional librarians. As such, it may be in the best interest of public service librarians and security personnel to reconsider the pro- cedures their institutions have established for the prevention and prosecution of library thefts. In upcoming studies, the Library Theft Database team will continue to analyze and gather data to determine further patterns in the occurrence and handling of library theft cases. While we acknowl- edge that there may be some variability in the taxonomy used by the Database, including our judgments identifying and Conclusions The data gathered in the Library Theft Database present a new picture of the “usual” suspect in cases of library theft. Though many experts have speculated that such cases have been predominantly perpetrated by institutional insiders, the LTD provides a corrective. Because of media attention and the shock value of several high-profile thefts involving professional librarians—directors, cura- tors, and other individuals in leadership roles—undue weight has been placed upon these occurrences, leaving many with the impression that only such au- thoritative figures would have the knowl- edge and the opportunity to remove collection material from their institutions. Reported cases of theft suggest otherwise, FIGURE 6 Known Suspects to Insider Thefts by Year 1 2 0 1 4 7 1 0 3 3 3 7 0 1 1 2 3 6 1 3 3 2 3 1 2 4 5 3 10 18 2 5 3 7 5 21 0 2 9 7 9 15 4 5 10 12 13 1 0 5 10 15 20 25 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Known Suspects Insider The�s The Case of Insider Theft in Research Libraries and Special Collections 567 categorizing individuals and institutions, we feel that the conclusions drawn from the data are robust and valuable. Greater opportunities to refine the LTD by gather- ing additional information about repre- sented cases, as well as records for thefts not currently described in the Database, will give a greater understanding of the threat of library theft and provide addi- tional means to circumvent it. Examining new quantitative data should offer a new perspective on how security guidelines for institutional research collections are written and followed. Notes 1. For example, in his meticulously researched Texfake, W. Thomas Taylor notes that “by 1971 the wholesale disappearance of documents from state institutions, and their dispersal at public auction with little adverse consequence, was a common occurrence” (30). In the case of the C. Dorman David auction at the Warwick Hotel, Houston, Taylor points to the fact that figures were sent “to represent the University of Texas at the David sale and to buy back many items that officials of the Texas State Library believed to be state property,” a common strategy at the time. An inventory of purchased material makes clear that the directors of the affected institu- tions “believed that most of the documents purchased by the university already belonged to the state” (31). W. Thomas Taylor, Texfake: An Account of the Theft and Forgery of Early Texas Printed Documents (Austin, Tex.: W. Thomas Taylor, 1991). Writing recently, Sydney Van Nort argues that “the prevailing attitude in the past was that a theft should not be publicized to any outside authorities. This practice is no longer seen as ethical in the professional or library world” (5207). Sydney C. Van Nort, “Theft, Vandalism and Security in Libraries and Archives.” Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, 3rd ed., eds. Marcia J. Bates and Mary Niles Maack (Boca Raton, Fla.:CRC Press), 5204–19. 2. The work of the RBMS Security Committee in maintaining an ongoing monthly list of thefts, investigations, and returned or reclaimed items has been a major milestone in sharing information regarding stolen objects, and a starting point for the project detailed in this paper. Independent projects from the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC Missing Book Reporting Project), the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (the ILAB Stolen Book Database), and the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (the ABAA Stolen Book Database) have also led to the sharing of information in an attempt to prevent and resolve occurrences of theft. 3. In “Archival and Library Theft: The Problem That Will Not Go Away,” Van Nort quotes Ronald Lieberman, then Chair of the Security of Antiquarian Bookseller’s Association of America, that there is “no good substantial statistical information at this time” (25)—an assertion that he echoes directly in the 2010 Encyclopedia article. Sydney C. Van Nort, “Archival and Library Theft: The Problem That Will Not Go Away.” Library & Archival Security 12 (1994): 25–49. 4. Van Nort, “Theft, Vandalism and Security,” 5206. 5. An excellent example of this mode of essay, Daniel Traister’s account of an insider theft from the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library at the University of Pennsylvania, seems to acknowledge in its subtext the limitations of the anecdotal approach. Traister admits that “the scope of rare book theft [is] difficult to recognize” and makes several asides over the course of the article suggesting both the widespread nature of the problem and the prevailing sense of disbelief and surprise accompanying it: “because of the publicity surrounding the University of Pennsylvania’s thefts, I now know of so many that, if anyone still retains the illusion that library theft is uncommon, I’ve got very bad news.” Daniel Traister, “Seduction and Betrayal: An Insider’s View of Insider Theft of Rare Materials,” Wilson Library Bulletin 69 (1994): 30–33. 6. Traister, “Seduction and Betrayal,” 33. 7. Ross Griffiths and Andrew Krol, “Insider Theft: Reviews and Recommendations from the Archive and Library Professional Literature,” Library & Archival Security 22, no. 1 (2009): 14. 8. D.S. Zeidberg, “‘We Have Met the Enemy…’ Collection Security in Libraries,” Rare Books & Manuscripts Librarianship 2, no. 1 (1987): 19–26. This ellipsis elides the “and he is us” from Walt Kelly’s famous Pogo comic. What that title leaves implicit, of course, is that many of the major thefts between 1979 and 1986, the temporal scope of the article, were attributed to library insid- ers. While Zeidberg laments the loss of books, archival records, and other artifacts from these institutions, he notes that “my colleagues and I are more concerned, saddened, and perplexed, however, by the number of students, professors, staff members, and librarians who are implicated in these cases” (19). 9. Zeidberg notes that, at the time of his SPEC kit, fewer than fifteen percent of libraries had 568 College & Research Libraries November 2012 a standing security policy. Zeidberg, “‘We Have Met the Enemy…’,” 22. 10. Zeidberg, “‘We Have Met the Enemy…’,” 22. 11. Terry Belanger, “Oberlin Conference on Theft Calls for Action,” Library Journal 108, (Nov. 15, 1983): 2118. 12. Tim Richardson, “What Drives People to Steal Precious Books” The Financial Times, Mar. 6, 2009, available online at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d41a83d6-09dc-11de-add8-0000779fd2ac. html#axzz26wlnTf1r [accessed 9 June 2010]. In the text of a presentation published online, Ton Cremers provides a number of narratives of book theft and gives his security solutions: “… and the curator did it,” “Rogues Gallery: An Investigation into Art Theft,” Annual meeting of the AXA Art Conference, London, November 1, 2005, available online at http://www.museum-security.org/ insider-theft.pdf [accessed 9 June 2010]. 13. Griffiths and Krol, “Insider Theft,” 10. 14. Griffiths and Krol, “Insider Theft.” The citation lists page 28 as the source of the statistic, but the only reference found in Van Nort’s article appears on page 38. 15. Van Nort, “Archival and Library Theft,” 38. 16. Griffiths and Krol provide a partial attempt at quantifying insider theft. Their essay contains a “review of 107 thefts reported between 2002 and 2007 [that] shows that seventeen were allegedly carried out by individuals occupying insider positions including librarians, volunteers, student workers, security staff, an intern, the head of a friends committee, and a historical society cura- tor”; Griffiths and Krol, “Insider Theft,” 9. Despite this preliminary effort to quantify instances of insider theft, the article uses the information in the mode of narrative examples rather than pursuing the implication of their data. Rather than providing the percentage of insiders convicted of theft from their sample, they reveal the names and accounts of four specific figures. 17. Griffiths and Krol, “Inside Theft,” 8. 18. For example, the one exception to this guideline that we allowed to enter the data is the occurrence of David Slade’s conviction of the theft of 68 books from Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. Our rationale in including this theft from a private library was partially that it represents such an unusual instance of insider theft: David Slade, a reputable dealer and a former president of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association in the United Kingdom, was hired by Sir Evelyn de Rothschild to catalogue his extensive collection of rare books. Slade traded on his reputation in the book trade to steal over $380,000 worth of antiquarian volumes. Because of the profile of the victim and the theft, and because of the quality of the collection itself, we opted to identify the Rothschild collection as an Independent Special Collection. 19. “Police Looking for Help in Identifying Stolen Property,” available online at http://news. stanford.edu/pr/92/920430Arc2247.html [accessed 9 May 2011]. 20. Basbanes writes that “extensive press reports had suggested that Blumberg’s haul was worth up to $20 million, a figure that had made him a minor celebrity in the criminal world”; Nicholas A. Basbanes, A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books (New York: Henry Holt), 2. Blumberg was never, however, motivated by mercenary interests; Basbanes recounts Blumberg’s statement that “I never took the books to sell … the idea was to keep them.” 21. “12 Accused of Checking Out Library Books to Sell Them,” available online at www. nbcwashington.com/news/local/12-Accused-of-Checking-Library-Books-to-Sell-Them-69711687. html [accessed 22 April 2011]. 22. Catherine Milton, “‘Sad Obsessive’ Stole 40,000 Library Books to Impress Friends,” The Times, June 2, 1994 [retrieved from LexisNexis Academic, 22 April 2011]. 23. “$23,000 Library Theft,” New York Times, June 30, 1988, Late City Final Edition, Section A, Page 14, Column 3 [retrieved from LexisNexis Academic, 22 April 2011]. 24. Karlyn Barker, “Letter-Theft Suspect’s Serene Self-Portrait; ‘I’m Not an Eccentric, Everyone Else Is,’ Charles Mount Says,” The Washington Post, August 21, 1987, A1 [retrieved from LexisNexis Academic, 22 April 2011]. 25. While the number of known insider thefts from the data amount to 58, there was one record where only an insider would have access to the repository from which books were stolen, and this is marked as “Unknown” in the chart. 26. Michael Rogers, “Removed Tomes from London’s Beth Din Library; Books Recovered,” Library Journal 123, no. 12 (July 1998): 24. 27. Associated Press, “World Briefing Europe: Denmark: Old Literary Thefts Solved,” The New York Times, Dec. 12, 2003, Section A; Column 2; Foreign Desk; 21 [retrieved from LexisNexis Academic, 1 August 2011].