Stolen Antique Maps — What's The Solution?

A story by William Finnegan in this week’s New Yorker magazine tells of the arrest this summer of E. Forbes Smiley III, one of the world’s leading rare map dealers. Smiley has been charged by New Haven, CT authorities with the theft of 3 maps cut from rare books at Yale University’s Beinecke Library in June of this year. He also faces possible federal charges in connection with the theft of a fourth, more valuable map, allegedly found on his person on the day of his arrest.

Should All The Rare Maps, Books, And Documents Be Locked Away?

At the heart of this case is a simple question — how much access, if any, should a library permit, to books or documents that are rare and undoubtedly valuable? If Smiley is guilty he would only be the latest in a string of well-known “slicers,” or thieves, who have cut antique maps and other valuable pages out of rare books in libraries. These thefts continue because stealing pages from books is easy pickings. If it remains easy, with stupendously valuable prizes like the $150,000 Gerard de Jode map that Smiley is accused of taking, then he will hardly be the last of the antique map thieves. But, to make these artifacts more secure, libraries would need to sharply curtail access to them. Is that the right thing to do?