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-------- Original Message --------
Subject:         Did Smiley take several copies of some maps?
Date:   Fri, 4 Aug 2006 20:00:42 +0100
From:   tony campbell <[log in to unmask]>
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Another important newspaper article, from the Harvard Crimson this time.  It
appears that Monday's meeting of the affected libraries and the FBI will try
to resolve (physically, there and then? it seems unlikely) exactly which
library had owned those retrieved maps, where several had lost examples.

If it turns out that Smiley's information was not always reliable, what
then?

Selected passages; for the full text see:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=514067

 'New Twist in Smiley Case. Libraries suspect that map dealer might have
stolen more maps than admitted' (by Brittney L. Moraski in the Harvard
Crimson, 4 August 2006)

'Administrators from several of the nation's top libraries, including
Harvard's Houghton Library, will meet at Yale on Aug. 7 to determine the
ownership of 97 maps stolen by E. Forbes Smiley III.

But at least four of those libraries, including the Houghton, are missing
copies of the same maps, raising concern that Smiley may have taken more
than he has admitted to stealing from seven libraries over a
seven-and-a-half year period in a plea bargain he signed in June.

The maps missing from Harvard's collection, for example, overlap with maps
missing from collections at the New York Public Library, Yale University,
the Boston Public Library, and the British Library, according to Harvard
College Library (HCL) Director of Communications Beth S. Brainard.

The Aug. 7 meeting will allow the libraries to look closely at the 97 maps
recovered by the government to determine which collection each map was
stolen from, she said.

"Some of the institutions will come up with a longer list of missing items
after this meeting," Brainard said.

By comparing the edges of maps and damage to the paper the maps were printed
on, the libraries' representatives hope to determine what map belongs to
what book - and thus to what library, she said ... The eight maps Smiley has
admitted to stealing are expected to be returned to the University around
the time of Smiley's sentencing in September. But because Harvard's missing
maps overlap with those of other institutions, fewer than eight maps will be
returned if some of the recovered copies are found to belong to other
libraries instead.'

Tony Campbell

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extract from: Theft Links - Literature <
http://www.maphistory.info/theftlinks.html#smiley >