The Vespiary Book Binding & Book Conservation

Nothing enrages me more than sophisticated biblioklepts who destroy public property for their own gain. The infamous Stephen Blumberg first springs to mind, with his elaborate and large-scale book filching career that is detailed in Nicholas Basbanes’ book, A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books (there’s also a good synopsis here). I am happy to say that one more saga of thievery has come to an end in Great Falls, Montana. James Lyman Brubaker has pleaded guilty to making off with over 800 books from 100 libraries around the American West, waiting to be broken into maps and plates and sold on eBay. He was found with a “library-removal kit” of magnets, razors, chemicals, and sealable envelopes (to prevent his search without a warrant) used to smuggle items out of institutions. A librarian for the Wilson Library at Western Washington University was instrumental in detecting and tracking down Mr. montanasilver. It looks like he hit a number of libraries here in Montana, but not, luckily, in Missoula, otherwise I’m sure I’d be doing a number of map tip-ins… I don’t even want to talk about the dollar amount of destruction he inflicted on the various items.

More good news is in the establishment of a Missing and Stolen Maps database, sponsored by the International Antiquarian Mapsellers Association. If you find an item in your collection that is missing a map, you can register and post the item, alerting dealers to its potential presence in the market.

While Blumberg awaits sentencing (right now either 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and/or 3 years supervised release), I look around at the large cutting and squeezing equipment available to me in my work space and think maybe they should release him into my care for a week or two…