‚Catch as Catch Can’

Abstract

Having been asked to speak on security prevention and actual incidents, I will start with the latter. After some sad stories, I would like to give a more general analysis, and then I will explain our thinking in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek on the steps we can take in order to prevent theft as far as possible in the future. 8 February 2001: the Department of Special Collections in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek is informed of a case of theft in the Royal Library in Copenhagen, by an English-speaking person. No name was given, but the staff in the reading room are on high alert because at that very moment a person with a British passport is consulting rare atlases. This person had already visited the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in October the year before. However, nothing suspicious can be detected from his behaviour, so the reader leaves the reading room – and our Library – unhindered. But, feeling uneasy, some colleagues decide to check the atlases that had been issued. To cut a long story short (it took several days of hard work to check all the atlases the reader had consulted), we ended up with a list of 55 maps missing from 25 books and atlases. A coincidental effect of this action was the discovery of thefts from some other atlases, which must have been the work of a German reader who had earlier visited our Library.