RBMS Security Committee

• Charge (from RBMS Manual)
• Current Members (from RBMS Committee Roster)
• Agendas and Minutes
• ACRL/RBMS Guidelines Regarding Security and Theft in Special Collections (2009)

Library and Archival Security News

• MissingMaterials.org, Together with the RLG Partnership, the RBMS Security Committee and the ABAA, OCLC Research developed MissingMaterials.org, a free mechanism for sharing reliable information about missing rare books and other materials at the network level. A description of the project and slides from the May 10, 2010 webinar can be found at http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/missingmaterials/default.htm
• "Lessons from a Theft: Bringing Security Tools and Knowledge to New York's Historical Records Community", The New York State Historical Records Advisory Board (SHRAB) has begun work on a NHPRC funded project to develop training and web resources related to records security and theft prevention. Workshops and tools will be available for NYS archives, local governments, historical organizations, libraries, and any other repository with rare, archival, historical or public records in their collections. More information can be found at http://www.nyshrab.org/about/about_projects_security.shtml.
• Art and Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art World, edited by Noah Charney, has been published (2009) by Praeger. Despite its focus on the art world, it contains two articles, one by Travis McDade and the other by Richard W. Oram and Ann Hartley, on issues relating to library, archival, and map thefts and the recovery of special collections.
• What Drives People to Steal Precious Books (Financial Times, 6 March 2009), by Tim Richardson

Library and Archival Security Resources

Resources relating to security best practices, guidelines, and reporting of theft/missing items.

Incidents of Theft

A chronological log of theft reports in the news going back to July 1987.

State Laws

A list of individual state laws pertaining to thefts of and damage done to library materials.

Listings of Missing and Stolen Library Materials

• http://nj.gov/state/darm/missingdocuments.html#recovered. List of lost material from the New Jersey State Archives. [link posted 1 December 2011].
• List of damaged books and missing maps from the Austrian National Library [MS Word, posted 25 May 2010]
• Missing Broadsides, Posters, Prints and Photographs from the New York State Library Manuscripts and Special Collections [MS Word, posted 14 May 2010]
• Books missing from the German Society of Pennsylvania [MS Word, posted 25 November 2009]
• Books missing from University of Kansas, Watson Library [MS Word, posted 6 July 2009]
• Books missing from the University of Virginia Special Collections [MS Word, posted 2 March 2009]
• Materials stolen from Domings Soares Ferreira Penna Library [MS Word, posted 15 January 2009]
• Books missing from the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple Library
• Books stolen from Northwestern University's Herskovits Library of African Studies
• Information pertaining to the maps missing from various institutions, which includes the separate listings below.
• Books missing from the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
• Maps missing from Harvard University
• Maps missing from Yale's Sterling Memorial Library
• Books missing from the Maryland Historical Society
• Information about missing maps
• Two lists relating to the Blumberg thefts: 1) Books still missing; 2) Books returned to libraries that they don't think are theirs
• List of items missing from the Texas State Archives
• Information on missing books from the Royal Library of Copenhagen (Denmark)
• List of items missing from the U.S. National Archives