From: "Janet L. Steins" <steins_at_fas.harvard.edu>
I've just spent a good part of the last two workdays trying to return
a book seemingly stolen from a major university library and then sold
to my library by a book dealer working within the Advanced Book
Exchange (ABE) system.
It turns out after all my efforts that the book was actually withdrawn
from the original library's collection, but they made no attempt to cancel
the ownership marks or even stamp it "Withdrawn" before discarding it.
The book dealer told me he sees this kind of thing all the time, but in my
almost 25 years in research libraries I had never come across it. The
dealer even suggested that it might be an East Coast / West Coast problem,
with west coast libraries being more "laid back" about this sort of thing!
I wonder how others feel about this. I have returned numerous stolen books
to their rightful owners over the years, and expect other libraries to do
the same if they come across books belonging to my library. But it's clear
to me that attempting these reciprocal good deeds become a colossal waste of
our time if libraries don't bother to mark their deaccessional material
accordingly.
Should I bother? Should any of us bother?
Janet L. Steins
Associate Librarian for Technical Services and Collections
Tozzer Library
Harvard University
21 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge MA 02138
617-495-2292
617-496-2741 (fax)
Tozzer Library
Received on Wed Feb 21 2001 - 09:29:26 EST