Why do librarians take 20 years to publish their losses through theft???

Takes them 20 years to admit they are terrible librarians at Cambridge My competitors stealing their inventory from Libraries has been a fact of life for me for 53 years The shocking event of this has been that many of them feel guilty and set themselves up to be caught while I say that I have put 6 of them in jail working with the FBI and Interpol, the actual fact is that these thieves give us very easy clues. what is deeply annoying is that the Librarians are so embarrassed that they have been poor curators and easily robbed that they take 20 years to report the thefts and publish the list of what was taken. Only my passion for the history behind this amazing material culture has kept me at this profession for so long. Graham Here is the story: Entertainment & Arts ADVERTISEMENT Charles Darwin: Notebooks worth millions lost for 20 years By Rebecca Jones Arts correspondent Published 6 hours ago Share Charles Darwin's work on evolution theory by natural selection changed the way we think about the natural world IMAGE COPYRIGHTCAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY image captionCharles Darwin's work on evolution theory by natural selection changed the way we think about the natural world Cambridge University Library has announced that two notebooks written by Charles Darwin, worth many millions of pounds, have been missing for 20 years. One of them contains the 19th Century scientist's famous Tree of Life sketch, exploring the evolutionary relationship between species. Following an "extensive search", curators have now concluded they have probably been stolen. They are launching a public appeal for help in trying to find them. "This is heartbreaking," Dr Jessica Gardner, the university's librarian, tells the BBC. "We will leave no stone unturned," in trying to discover what has happened, she adds. Charles Darwin's hunch about early life was probably right The notebooks were last seen in November 2000 after "an internal request" to remove them from a special manuscripts storeroom to be photographed. They were taken to a temporary studio, which at the time was in a temporary building in the grounds of the university library because building work was taking place. It was only during "a routine check" two months later that it was discovered they were missing. "We know they were photographed in November," says Dr Gardner. "But we do not know what happened between then and the time in January 2001, when it was determined they were not in their proper place on the shelves. "And I'm afraid there isn't anything on the remaining record which tells us anything more." Darwin's Tree of Life sketch is among the missing notes IMAGE COPYRIGHTCAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY image captionHis Tree of Life sketch is among the missing notes Initially librarians thought they might have been put back in the wrong place. "My predecessors genuinely believed they had been misfiled and they would find them," adds Dr Gardner, who became director of library services in 2017. There were a number of "intense" searches over the years. They all drew a blank. Perhaps it is not that surprising given the size of the library. It is vast, containing more than 200km of shelving, roughly the distance from Cambridge to Southampton by road. It is home to more than 10 million maps and manuscripts and other objects. At the beginning of this year, Dr Gardner arranged a new search. Specialist staff combed through specific zones of the library's storage facilities. They conducted a "fingertip" check through 189 boxes which contain Darwin's books, drawings and letters. But still no notebooks. A new approach was needed, according to Dr Gardner. She says she was "not willing to accept" the notebooks would just "turn up". So she and her team "completely reviewed what happened at the time and critically we took a big step back from what had become a common understanding that they had been mis-shelved. "Reluctantly I have decided that was not the right conclusion." 'Probably stolen' Instead, she believes: "These notebooks have probably been stolen." Theft, she says, "should be ruled in as a possibility from the start and that wasn't". Security procedures, she explains, have been "revised and reviewed" and "tightened" over the last two decades. "Now if anything of this scale and significance was not found we would be going to the police." Cambridgeshire Police have now been informed and the disappearance of the notebooks has been recorded on the national Art Loss Register for missing cultural artefacts. The police have also added the missing notebooks to Interpol's database of stolen artworks. 'Inside Darwin's head' Cambridge University Library have appealed for the notebooks to be returned