[CPProt.net] The story of a map quest, a notable dealer's arrest --and now, a Chicago twist

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

The story of a map quest, a notable dealer's arrest --and now, a Chicago
twist

By Tonya Maxwell
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 6, 2005


Two antique maps are missing from Chicago's Newberry Library and the last
person likely to have handled them is a well-known map dealer charged with
the theft of three similar prints, according to the library's president.

That dealer, E. Forbes Smiley III, 49, is expected to appear in a New Haven,
Conn., courtroom for arraignment early next week on three counts of stealing
centuries-old maps from a Yale University library. Investigators allege he
took those maps, appraised at $178,000, from the Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library at Yale.

In March, Smiley visited the Newberry, at 60 W. Walton St., and viewed four
atlases, said Charles Cullen, the library's president. Two of the books each
have a map torn from them, he said.

Top map repositories across the country have been scouring their collections
since July, when federal agents announced they wanted to know if Smiley had
visited their institutions. The federal investigation was launched shortly
after a Yale librarian found an X-Acto knife blade on the floor of the
Beinecke library and noticed Smiley studying atlases nearby, authorities
said.

Cullen said no other patron had viewed the Newberry maps since March, when
records indicate Smiley looked at them. But staff members have access to the
books, and librarians aren't able to check every page before and after an
atlas is requested, he said, meaning pages could have been ripped away
earlier.

FBI investigators, who would not comment Friday, are aware of the missing
Newberry maps, Cullen said. But no charges have been filed, he said, and it
may be impossible to prove a theft had occurred.

But Cullen is optimistic about one security measure: Newberry officials
believe one map might have been marked with a library stamp, linking it to
the institution should it be found.

One map is a scaled-down 17th Century print of Virginia by Jamestown founder
Capt. John Smith; the other, an 18th Century map of coastal South Carolina.
The maps had not been appraised; why someone chose those pieces is puzzling,
given the collection holds far more distinctive maps, Cullen said.

After the Beinecke librarian noticed the X-Acto knife blade, officials
contacted Yale police, who watched Smiley as he browsed in the library and
later stopped him on campus, authorities said. Officers found eight 16th and
17th Century maps on him--seven in a briefcase and another in his blazer
pocket--according to court documents.

Smiley, reached Friday at his office in Martha's Vineyard, Mass., said he
could not discuss the charges against him.

"I'm afraid my attorneys in Connecticut asked me not to respond to those,"
said Smiley, who is free on $175,000 bail. He also declined to talk about
his career as a map dealer. On his Web site, Smiley writes that his company
helped build two of the premier private map collections in the country,
which were later donated to the public libraries in New York and Boston.

His attorney, Richard Reeve of New Haven, also declined to comment.

At Yale, Beinecke librarians said several of the maps on Smiley belonged to
their collection and local officials charged him with three counts of theft.
The remaining documents were sent to FBI agents, and the case of the missing
maps quickly reverberated through renowned map houses in the United States
as well as England.

Most of those top institutions, including Harvard and Yale Universities and
the New York Public Library, say they continue to examine their collections.
Boston Public Library officials have said Smiley visited in the last few
months, and nothing appears to be missing.

British Library officials in London, when asked if Smiley had visited their
institution, said three 16th and 17th Century maps are missing. Two of them,
maps of the world, were last viewed by a patron in March, representative
Victoria Main said. A patron last viewed a New England and Canadian
Maritimes map in June 2004. Main would not identify the patrons.

In the past, libraries and other institutions that lost treasures to theft
downplayed the cases, fearing prospective donors of artifacts would be
hesitant to hand their collection over to a victimized institution.

But that thinking has changed in the last decade or so, said Everett Wilkie,
head of the American Library Association's Rare Books and Manuscripts
Section security committee. Thieves are caught more quickly when
institutions publicize missing artifacts, he said.

Wilkie said that he has worked at Newberry and that it has good security.

That includes a program to mark documents and a glass-enclosed map reading
room, where patrons can be watched by the staff. Visitors cannot take
briefcases or overcoats with them as they view materials.

The Newberry, though a private institution, is free and open to the public
for research. Libraries don't want to make access difficult, Cullen said,
adding that people who take items from institutions are rare, but
despicable.

"He's the lowest of the low," Cullen said of a person who steals cultural
treasures from libraries. "He deserves to have the book thrown at him."

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tmaxwell at tribune.com