Thursday, June 11, 2009
Several rare books and artwork prints were vandalized in Watson Library May 28, resulting in about $5,000 in damages.
A book that held a collection of art prints about the archeology of Delphi, Greece had all of its contents removed. Others, such as a book about Julius Caesar and a German encyclopedia from 1819, had pages torn out.
Rebecca Smith, director of communications for KU libraries, stands beside the stacks in Watson where historical books were stolen and damaged. The damages to the books totaled $5,000.
Rebecca Smith, director of communications at KU Libraries, said that despite the damages, some of the books may still be usable.
KU Libraries filed the first report, which detailed the destruction of two books found by a library employee, May 28. Both books had pages torn out. One was found in the women’s restroom on the third floor, and the other was found on a fourth floor bench. The books’ estimated value was $3,700.
The library detailed vandalism of four more books in a police report June 8. The estimated damages totaled $1,300, although Smith said the estimates for both incidents were preliminary.
Captain Schuyler Bailey of the KU Public Safety Office said that the office did not have any suspects and that it was not known if the two incidents were connected. KU Libraries has alerted other libraries that the theft took place, as well as booksellers that might come in contact with the stolen materials.
Smith said that KU Libraries was working with other libraries to find replicas of the damaged books so the missing pages could be photographed and given to campus police.
Books similar to those that were stolen have been removed from open stacks and placed in a secure location. Smith said KU Libraries was considering greater security measures, such as surveillance, for its stacks and was evaluating books in the area and moving them to a more protected area.
The value of the books might have been surprising, Smith said, but it is common practice among large libraries to allow public access to rare materials.
“The job of a library is to make its resources available,” Smith said. “We walk a fine line between preservation and making them available to the public.”
Smith said it was not uncommon to find valuable books in the library’s stacks, and that the amount of damages spoke to the overall value of the library’s collection.
“We want things to be safe and secure, but we also want them to be used for their purpose, which is scholarly research,” Smith said.
Some of the books were published in the 1800s, but were still in good enough condition to stay in the Watson Library. Books in bad condition are moved to the Spencer Research Library, which is a closed stack system, or to the Library Annex, which is a temperature-controlled environment.
There are few places to sell the stolen pages, Hans Bremer, a manager at Spivey’s Books in Kansas City, Mo., said. Spivey’s sells rare books, maps, autographs and prints. Bremer said Spivey’s would not purchase anything thats origin could not be confirmed.
Bremer said that auction Web sites such eBay or dealers out of state would be an outlet to sell the pages, but that the pages would not have a lucrative resale value.
KU Libraries is working to digitize its collection so it can be made available to everyone while preserving the books at the same time. Smith said it was a daunting and expensive task because there are 4. 2 million volumes in the collection.
— — Edited by Kristen Liszewski
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