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Re: The Island of Lost Maps



I'm 3/4 through with this book and am glad I'm reading it.

Harvey may have been padding his book because a simple narrative of the Bland
thefts would not have taken up many pages.  However, I'm fascinated
by his almost mystical literary style when he's talking about explorers
and cartographers.  And also when he's describing his own "journey."
(Although I've learned to skip over sections to get back to the main
plot.)

The cases remind me most vividly of a thief who cutting out fine plates
"suitable for framing" from bound books and journals (mostly 18th-century
natural science and engineering) belonging to academic libraries in
the late 1970's.  His name was Robert Kindred and he owned the Antique
Print Room in the Dallas World Trade Center.  He did his homework well in
library guides (ULS, NUCMC) to pinpoint those libraries he wanted to hit
in order to replenish his his inventory.  He struck at the University of
Illinois library (where he was actually caught), Loyola in New Orleans,
Oklahoma State at Stillwater, Rice, University of Maryland, and Texas A&M.
His tool of choice was an Exacto knife; discarded blades from the knife
were found near the stacks he had plundered at Texas A&M.

Because Kindred had kept some plates in plastic envelopes along with the
title pages of the books he excised them from, and because the title pages
from a set of volumes carried a Rice property stamp (from the open
stacks, I'm relieved to say), the U of I police called the library
director at Rice.

I was sent up post-haste to Champaign-Urbana.  Most of the U of I
librarians were at ALA, and I was obviously a captive librarian, so the U
of I police asked me to go through packet after packet of prints seized from
Kindred's Cadillac.  I learned enough to be able to identify the
publications from which many of the prints came, but very rarely was there
a specific library ownership indication. One of my most interesting
professional experiences.

After Kindred's arrest, the FBI got into the act because of the suspicion
of his taking stolen property across state lines.  When we at Rice were
able to prove through early order records that we had indeed purchased the
volumes from which Kindred had taken plates, they were able to prosecute.

Nancy Boothe
University Archivist and Head of Special Collections
Rice University



On Thu, 10 May 2001, Steve Cox wrote:

> Julie-
>
> I read the book about a month ago, and enjoyed it.  I wonder
> if Mr. Harvey felt it necessary to "pad" the book with a few
> related issues to beef it up a bit.  Still, it's a small
> book, and I got through it in 3 or 4 days.  As a librarian
> it caused me to wonder about this issue- the fact that we
> look out for item theft but not always item mutilation.  I
> enjoyed, too, the descriptions of some of the public and
> private libraries mentioned in the book.  It's an
> interesting read, for anyone interested in maps, libraries,
> and archives.
>
> Steve Cox
> Fremont, NE
>
> "Kerssen, Julie" wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Has anyone on the list read _The Island of Lost Maps_ by
> > Miles Harvey?  It rambles quite a bit, but the core of the
> > (nonfiction) book is the story of Gilbert Bland, who was
> > arrested several years ago after stealing historic maps
> > from libraries all over North America.  The author talks
> > about how the popularity of eBay and the Antiques Roadshow
> > is putting archival collections in more danger, as
> > interest in -- and prices for -- old documents, maps,
> > books, and so on continue to rise.  He also claims that
> > some libraries refused to admit they had anything stolen,
> > presumably so as not to frighten off potential donors.
> > However, this meant that they were not able to get their
> > maps back once they had been recovered (since they
> > insisted they weren't missing).  If true, I think this is
> > somewhat disturbing.
> >
> > Has anyone else read the book?  What did you think?  I
> > personally could have done without the digressions into
> > sea monsters and the Hardy Boys, but the story of the
> > thief was interesting, as were the security issues the
> > case raises.  I'm especially interested to hear whether
> > anyone from the libraries that were "hit" have read the
> > book, and whether they thought Harvey's condemnation of
> > library security procedures was fair.
> >
> > Julie Kerssen
> > King County, WA
>

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