Episode 11: The Most Notorious Book Thief (Part 1)
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Authors
Davis, Rick
Mertes, Micah
Issue Date
2023-07-25
Type
Sound recording
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Abstract
Law-abiding library patrons Rick and Micah discuss Creighton's relation to the academic crime of the century: the Iowa man who stole 26,000 rare books and manuscripts from about 300 university libraries across the U.S. The collection — estimated at anywhere from $5.3 million to $40 million — made Stephen Carrie Blumberg the most prolific book thief in world history. After Blumberg's 1990 arrest, a group of Creighton librarians helped the FBI return thousands of books to their rightful owners. This drew Blumberg's ire, and he warned Creighton that the Reinert library would be the next target of one of his elaborate heists. More than 30 years later, as a Creighton archivist, professor and class of students recently discovered, this story is far from finished.
Read the story of the book bandit, the Omaha Project, and the Creighton detectives here. (https://web.archive.org/web/20230929175229/https://alumni.creighton.edu/news-events/news/book-bandit-Omaha-project-Creighton-detectives)
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Creighton University