Library Loses Rambam Letter

By The Guardian / AAP

More than 9000 books, including rare classics, have gone missing from the British Library.

Library staff insist they do not believe the valuable books have been stolen, saying instead they have been “mislaid” somewhere among its 650km of shelf space and 150m items in its central London base.

Many older books have not been seen for years, including a 1555 edition of 12th-century Jewish scholar Moses Ben Maimon’s Letter on Astrology.

On the missing list are also first edition novels by Charles Dickens, a first edition of Oscar Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, plus an illustrated 1876 edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

Jennifer Perkins, the library’s head of records, said the library only realized books were mislaid when a reader requested them but staff could not find them.

Sometimes a book was not in its correct place on the shelf, while at other times they were misplaced in rolling audits of the library’s massive collection, she said.

“There are a number of reasons why collection items may not be at their correct shelf location: they may have been misplaced on the shelves, the shelf mark label may have become detached from the spine and the item is being checked and reshelved, or the catalogue record may not have been altered to reflect a changed shelf mark,” Ms Perkins said.

“The library takes the security of its collections very seriously and has a range of measures designed to protect collection items from inadvertent or deliberate harm.”