----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
     Summaries follow of two reports sent to me  from the rare books
     librarian here at NYPL:
 
     Our friend James Perry/Gilbert Bland has visited at least one library
     in the Midwest--the University of Chicago, Dept of special collections
     reading room on Oct. 31, 1995.
 
     He used Abraham Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1584,  which is now
     missing three previously unrecorded as missing maps: Cuba, Culiacana,
     Hispanola [map 7]; Florida [map 8] and Anglia [map 11].
 
     He also used Robert Morden's Geography rectified...2d ed. London, 1688
     and it is now missing 9 pages with maps.
 
     The University will be pressing charges, and has reported all this to
     the FBI in Baltimore.
 
     Secondly, last Friday's Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer newspaper
     reported he had not yet been charged, that the FBI and federal
     prosecutors "had still not decided Thursday whether to charge a
     Florida man awith stealing dozens of rare maps and illustrations from
     university libraries."  ...Gilbert Bland is being questioned about the
     thefts, which occurred at seven [eight+] universities, including Duke
     and the Univeristy of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
 
     So, Happy New Year everyone...
 
     Alice Hudson
     Map Division, NYPL