GED prep guides, nursing and other professional exam cliff notes were high on the list of frequently filched books — but so too were graphic novels, library officials said.
Book thieves checked out but never returned 70,144 books from Brooklyn Public Library’s 60 cash-strapped branches in 2012, records show.
GED prep guides, nursing and other professional exam cliff notes were high on the list of frequently filched books — but so too were graphic novels, library officials said.
“Those are always going missing,” a librarian at the Brooklyn Heights branch told the Daily News Thursday.
Library workers blame cutbacks for the large number of thefts, which spiked dramatically from 2011, when 61,543 books were never returned.
At the Brooklyn Heights branch, staff has been slashed from 30 employees to 20 over the past five years, largely due to city budget cuts. In 2010, 71,087 books vanished.
“We don’t have the staff to watch as much,” said the librarian, who declined to give her name.
The library bills 25 cents a day for late books checked out by adults or 10 cents a day for books from the children’s area. Patrons with late CDs get hit with a buck-a-day fine and DVDs are $2. Cards holders who owe $15 or more are blocked from borrowing new materials.
“We have systems in place to incentivize people to be responsible and return their materials, but people taking advantage of the system is an unfortunate reality,” said library spokeswoman Emma Woods.
Despite the thefts, library officials have kept the shelves full — in 2012, the system bought 419,790 new print books and 18,323 new e-books.
But the overall catalogue continues to shrink.
There were approximately 4.1 million books and other materials in 2009, but that number had dropped to 3.3 million by 2012, due in part to the thefts, records show.
“It makes the wait longer for hit books,” said patron Manuel Pardo of the thefts while browsing at the Brooklyn Heights branch Thursday.
Source: nydailynews.com
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