THE SILVER LINING:COPING WITH THEFT, VANDALISM,DETERIORATION, AND BAD PRESS

In the summer of 1994, the staff of Columbia Universityʹs Rare Book and Manuscript Library discovered that twentythree medieval manuscripts and early Arabic texts had disappeared from the secured vault. In the following months, it became clear that many more items were missing from the stacks than had originally appeared to be the case, representing a loss to the library of $1.3 million worth of codices, early printed books, presidential letters, midieval documents, business papers, and maps. Thanks to the hard work of law enforcement agencies and the cooperation of the antiquarian book community, the thief was apprehended in Utrecht in 1995; approximately three-quarters of the stolen items were eventually retrieved. Despite this negative experience, the library was able to wrest a positive outcome by deciding to cooperate fully with the authorities and take a public stand against the failure of courts to view the theft of cultural materials as a serious issue. United States District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan issued a lackmark opinion in the case, basing his decision to exceed the federal sentencing guidelines by five levels on the potential harm inflicted on society as a whole by the theft of "rare and unique elements of our cultural heritage."