[CPProt.net] British Library official confirmes that 6, 990 items are now listed as "not being at the correct position on the shelf".

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Theft of 400-year-old maps adds to British Library's catalogue of woes
By Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent
September 13, 2005
 
 
THREE historically important maps printed more than 400 years ago have been
stolen from the British Library. 
The latest in an increasing number of thefts from libraries worldwide, they
were removed from three bound volumes, cut out with a blade in two cases and
pulled out from the third. 
 
 
They include an untitled world map, an oval woodblock from George Best’s A
True Discourse of the Late Voyages of Martin Frobisher, printed in London in
1578. Frobisher, the English navigator and early explorer of Canada’s
northeast coast, went in search of gold in the New World licensed by Queen
Elizabeth I. Captain Best accompanied him on all three voyages, in 1576,
1577 and 1578, and this work is an account of them. 

An untitled New England and Canadian Maritimes map from Sir William
Alexander’s An Encouragement to Colonies, London, 1624, and a world map by
Peter Apian from Ioannis Camertis Minoritani by Solinus, Venice, 1520, were
also stolen. 

Police are investigating the thefts, which are believed to have taken place
earlier this year. The loss comes six months after damning figures, released
under the Freedom of Information Act, revealed that an estimated 7,000 books
had disappeared from the British Library since it moved to new £511 million
headquarters on London’s Euston Road in 1998. 

Reported losses included 16th-century maps cut from books, and a collection
by the Roman poet Horace printed in 1540. Comics worth £17,000 were also
taken at its premises at Colindale in 2000. These included the first issue
of the Beano to contain the character Dennis the Menace, dated March 17,
1951, and rare copies of the Dandy and Eagle. 

Among other thefts from the British Library, burglars last year stole
audiovisual equipment worth thousands of pounds after mistakenly being
allowed into the building by a security guard. 

In 2002, a Cambridge graduate who masterminded the theft of antiquarian
books worth more than £1 million from three of the nation’s leading
libraries was jailed for four years. A chartered accountant amassed a
collection of 400 antiquarian books from various sources, including the
British Library, the London Library and the library at Cambridge University.


In 1996, a landscape gardener admitted causing up to £289,000 of damage by
cutting out illustrations from antique books in archives, including the
British Library. 

A British Library official confirmed that 6,990 items are now listed as “not
being at the correct position on the shelf”. They may have been misplaced or
miscatalogued, she stressed. 

Part of the problem is that the library has more than 150 million items
stored in 650 kilometres of shelving. 

Last year an Essex man was jailed for stealing 50 maps from the National
Library in Wales, but libraries across Europe — including Aberystwyth,
Copenhagen, Helsinki, Stockholm and The Hague — have also fallen victim to
thieves. 

Robbers usually do not remove an entire atlas from a collection. They take
single sheets, which are much more portable. 

Single maps removed from an atlas in a dealer’s possession will be
indistinguishable from others stolen from a library — except, perhaps, where
there is a library stamp. 

A central register of stolen maps is being proposed by the police and
museums to combat the problem

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/