Status of Stolen Maps in Limbo

Harvard College Library (HCL) administrators are staying mum about the results of an Aug. 7 meeting between HCL and several other libraries who have had maps stolen from their collections by map thief E. Forbes Smiley III.

Federal authorities were also present at the meeting at Yale University, which was held to determine ownership of the 97 maps that Smiley has admitted to stealing over a seven-year period.

HCL Director of Communications Beth S. Brainard said that the meeting was positive and productive, but that the libraries agreed not to comment on the meeting’s proceedings.

Harvard will not announce whether it will hire an investigator to determine if Smiley took more maps than the eight he has admitted to stealing until after Smiley is sentenced in mid-September.

The Aug. 7 meeting was intended to give libraries the chance to determine which library each stolen map was taken from. The New York Public Library, Yale University, the Boston Public Library, and the British Library all claim to be missing maps that Harvard says it is missing.

Smiley’s plea agreement lists what maps he stole and from which institutions. But questions of ownership arose after multiple libraries discovered that they had the same maps missing.

“Some of the institutions will come up with a longer list of missing items after this meeting,” Brainard told The Crimson at the end of July.

Brainard would not comment about whether the eight maps identified as Harvard’s were proven to belong to the University at Monday’s meeting.

The next step for Harvard, other institutions, and dealers affected by Smiley’s thefts is to prepare victim impact statements that will give them the opportunity to explain to the court what impact Smiley’s crime has had on them.

Such statements are a way for victims to describe how they’ve been affected by a crime. The judge in a case can use that information to help in sentencing and determining restitution, according to Justice Department Public Information Officer Tom Carson.

Prior to Smiley’s sentencing in federal court on Sept. 21, the probation office will compile and write a pre-sentencing report that will be submitted to the judge, Carson said.

After federal sentencing, Smiley will then be sentenced in Connecticut state court on Sept. 22, according to The New York Times.

Smiley faces up to ten years in prison and a fine of over 1.6 million dollars. However, his suggested sentence is 57 to 71 months, according to sentencing guidelines.

At Harvard, the librarians and administrators who attended the Aug. 7 meeting will work on the victim impact statement in the coming month, Brainard said.

Though Smiley has admitted to stealing 97 maps, libraries have discovered additional maps missing in books that Smiley is known to have seen. The British Library has hired its own prosecutor to look into additional maps missing from its collection located in books Smiley has viewed, and the five maps still missing from Harvard’s collection—in addition to the eight admitted by Smiley—were located in books Smiley has viewed before.

Brainard said that HCL has not ruled out taking its own legal action against Smiley. “There’s nothing that says we’ve chosen one course of action or another,” Brainard said.

“Our biggest concern right now is just getting the maps physically back in our collection,” she said.

Everett Wilkie, a library security professional, said that Smiley’s thefts have “no doubt” caused libraries to improve their security, such as by installing closed-circuit televisions, restricting access to certain materials, increasing supervision, and starting to mark material more aggressively to make stolen items harder to sell.

Because of the relative ease of concealing a sharp object intended to be used for removing maps from books, map thieves are difficult for library security personnel to discover.

“The problem is that what you need to remove a map is so small that it’s almost impossible to detect,” Wilkie said.

—Staff writer Brittney L. Moraski can be reached at bmoraski@fas.harvard.edu.