I am back from my Christmas holiday with my family in St. Louis. I was very lucky to have left Cleveland when I did because I did not get hit by that huge snow storm that pretty much paralyzed Ohio and Indiana. I hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful holiday. So let's get back to blogging....

I have heard from other librarians that people are stealing rare or just very expensive library books and selling them on eBay. Well here is an article from the Akron Beacon Journal newspaper, "Former library employee pleads guilty to selling ancient texts." David Breithaupt, who was a night supervisor at Kenyon College Library, plead guilty to stealing Kenyon's rare books and selling them on eBay. More than $50,000 of rare books were stolen and then sold to people on eBay. Breithaupt, sold a copy of Ptolemy's "Almagest," which closed on eBay for $4,750. It would cost $7,000 to replace the 16th century book.

In the April 14, 2004 Columbus Dispatch (sorry archives not free online) Breithaupt and his girlfriend's financial records, "produced during the trial before Common Pleas Court Judge Otho Eyster, showed $744,130 in unexplained, nonwage bank deposits from 1995 to 2000."

According a brief article in American Libraries Online, Breithaupt claimed that the library fabricated the whole story to cover up the fact that staff had thrown the valuable materials into the trash, where they claim to have found them.

"The disappearance of letters, manuscripts and books was discovered in April 2000 when a Georgia college librarian bid on a Flannery O'Connor letter listed for sale on eBay by Breithaupt's girlfriend, Hupp. The librarian soon realized, however, that the letter matched a photocopy of the document that Kenyon provided him in 1993. He called Christopher Barth (director of information resources at the Olin and Chalmers Libraries at Kenyon College), which led to the search of Breithaupt and Hupp's home in April 2000." (April 14 Columbus Dispatch)
****my thoughts***


Yeah to the alert librarian!!! I am sure Kenyon College has expressed their thanks, but would like to as well for me and other fellow librarians. THANK YOU!

So there you have it in black and white, stolen books are being sold on eBay. I am sure this is not shocking to some librarians. One thing to for librarians to think about is that this is not just happening to rare book collections I have heard on my email lists that some medical librarians have found their expensive medical books stolen and sold on the internet. (Medlib archived email Aug. 4, 2003)

While I wouldn't recommend searching eBay for every book that is missing in your collection, it might be worth it if you start to notice very expensive or large amounts of books are gone.