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Accused Map Thief Pleads InnocentE. Forbes Smiley III pleaded not guilty August 9 in New Haven, Connecticut, Superior Court to three counts of first-degree larceny stemming from his June 8 arrest on the Yale University campus in possession of three maps apparently owned by the Beinecke Library, the New Haven Register reported August 10.Smiley, a resident of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, is a well-known collector and dealer in antique maps who has worked with libraries and museums for the past two decades. His website states that he works “for collectors and institutions, helping them build interesting, and often important, collections of early maps and atlases relating to the discovery and settlement of North America.” The same day as his court hearing, Boston Public Library officials announced that 10 maps were missing from six rare atlases in the library’s collection that Smiley had at one time viewed. BPL President Bernard A. Margolis said in the August 10 Boston Globe that he believes a map of Lake Superior found in Smiley’s possession at the time of his arrest may belong to the library. The charges against Smiley have stimulated rare maps curators to examine their collections for missing materials. The New York Public Library, the Newberry Library in Chicago, and the British Library have since reported suspicious gaps in their collections. Posted August 12, 2005. |
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