American Libraries |
||
Site Navigation
Left Sidebar ItemsOnline Features
Follow American Libraries news stories, videos, and blog posts on Twitter.
|
||
Missing Maps at Three Libraries Linked to Accused Yale ThiefThree rare-book libraries have confirmed that a former map dealer charged with stealing rare maps from Yale University’s Beinecke Library had also visited their collections and that maps are missing.Officials at the British Library in London, the Newberry Library in Chicago, and the New York Public Library stated in early August that E. Forbes Smiley III had requested and reviewed rare books that contained missing maps, the Hartford (Conn.) Courant reported August 5. Curators at Harvard University’s Houghton Library and the New York Historical Society are also checking their records. “We’re free and open to the public,” said Newberry President Charles T. Cullen. “It’s just despicable when people take advantage.” Newberry librarians have discovered two maps missing from books that Smiley had requested in March. Peter Barber, head of map collections for the British Library, told the Courant that at least two rare maps in books that Smiley viewed in June 2004 were removed with a blade. One of the missing maps is from George Best’s A True Discourse of the Late Voyages of Discouerie . . . of Martin Frobisher Generall. Barber said he remembered that Smiley “had made a great effort to meet me, and I was puzzled at the time as to why.” Smiley was also a longtime patron at the New York Public Library who had served on the steering committee of the Mercator Society, a group that provides NYPL with funding for the purchase of antiquarian maps and for the preservation of its cartographic holdings. “In the past, the people who’ve stolen maps have been mainly outsiders—not properly professional,” Barber said. “Forbes Smiley is disturbing because he is a member of the inner circle.” Smiley was arrested June 8 by university police in the lobby of the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, with four maps that were later identified as Yale property. Posted August 5, 2005. |
Right Sidebar
|
|
