Editing Widener Library (section)

==Burglary and other incidents==

Over the years, Widener has been the scene of various criminal exploits "infamous for their [[wikt:feckless|fecklessness]] and [[wikt:ignominy|ignominity]]."{{hsp}}{{ran|B|p=59}}

===<span id="williams"></span>Joel C. Williams===

[[File:HarvardCollegeLibrary HardLaborBookplate.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.8|[[Bookplate]] placed in 2504 books{{r|crime_dont}}{{r|bookplates}}]]

In 1931 former graduate student Joel C. Williams was arrested after attempting to sell two Harvard library books to a local book dealer. [[Charles Apted]] and other Harvard officials visited Williams' home{{r|crime_indict}}
where (posing as "book buyers" to spare the feelings of Williams' family){{ran|B|p=88}}
they found thousands{{r|crime_indict}} of books which Williams had stolen over the years,{{r|klepts|p=D}} many badly damaged. The "absolutely crazy" Williams would "go to students studying in Widener and ask them what course they were taking. He would then borrow all the books for that course in the library. Then no one could get any to study", library official John E. Shea later recalled.{{NoteTag
|{{r|crime_1951}}
{{anchor|shea}}John Shea was for forty years Widener's "guardian and familiar spirit". His mother had been a college "[[wikt:biddy#English-irishmaid|biddy]]" who (he said) "did professor [[Charles Townsend Copeland|C.&nbsp;T. Copeland's]] laundry for years",{{r|crime_1951}}
and he began his own Harvard career in 1905 as a Gore Hall coatchecker.
By his 1954 retirement as Widener's Stacks Superin{{shy}}tendent, he was "perhaps the last of the legendary College characters",{{r|AZ|p=58}} renowned not only for leaving "no stone unthrown"{{mdashb}}as he himself put it{{mdashb}}in locating mis-shelved or otherwise errant books, but also for his "genius for such malaprop{{shy}}isms [which] in fact, were generally the ''[[wikt:mot juste#Noun|mot juste]]''". These included references to "venereal blinds" and "osculating fans" in the Catalog Room, equipment that had "outlived its uselessness", a gift of a bottle of wine "as a momentum", and mention that Widener's head janitor "has a maniac for sweeping the basement."{{hsp}}{{r|sheavian}}
}}

Despite the misleading{{r|ask_disturbing}} implication of bookplates placed in the 2504{{r|klepts|p=D}} recovered books, Harvard's charges against Williams were dropped after he was indicted on book-theft charges in another jurisdic{{shy}}tion, which imposed a sentence of hard labor.{{r|thieves}} After the unrelated arrest of a book-theft ring operating at Harvard, there was a "noticeable increase in the number of missing books secretly returned to the library", the ''Transcript'' reported in 1932.{{ran|B|p=89}}

===Gutenberg Bible theft===
[[File:HarryElkinsWidener Letter 1912March10 p2 final paragraphs.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|"Now I will tell you a secret&nbsp;... I wish it was for me but it is not." {{shy|Harry Wide|ner's letter con|fid|ing his grand|father's pur|chase of the "Hoe copy"{{clarify|date=November 2023}} of the [[Gutenberg bible]], which the Widener family later gave to Harvard.}} ]]

On the night of August 19, 1969 an attempt was made to steal the library's Gutenberg Bible, valued at $1{{nbsp}}million{{r|suspect}} (equivalent to ${{Inflation|US-GDP|1|1969|r=0}} million in {{Inflation-year|US-GDP}}).{{Inflation-fn|US-GDP}}
Equipped with a hammer, pry bar, and other burglarious implements,
the 20-year-old would-be thief{{r|suspect}} hid in a lavatory until after closing, then made his way to the roof, from which he descended via a knotted rope to break through a Memorial Room<!--<<check name of Memorial vs. Collection rooms>--> window.
But after smashing the bible's display case and placing its two volumes in a knapsack, he found the additional 70 pounds (32{{nbsp}}kg) made it impossible for him to reclimb the rope.{{r|klepts|p=D}}

Eventually he fell some {{convert|50|ft|m}}{{r|houghton_chron|p=45}} to the pavement of one of the light courts, where he lay semicon{{shy}}scious{{r|slips}}
until his moans were heard by a janitor;{{r|houghton_chron|p=45}}
he was found about 1{{nbsp}}a.m.{{r|grace}}
with injuries including a fractured skull.{{r|slips}}
"It looks like a profes{{shy}}sion{{shy}}al job all right, in the fact that he came down the rope," commented [[Harvard Police Department|Harvard Police]] Chief [[Robert Tonis]]. "But it doesn't look very profes{{shy}}sion{{shy}}al that he fell off."{{hsp}}{{r|suspect}}
Tonis specu{{shy}}lated that the attempt may have been modeled on a similar caper depicted in the 1964 film{{thinsp}}''[[Topkapi (film)|Topkapi]]'',{{r|grace}}
though a retired Harvard librarian later commented that the thief (who was later judged insane){{r|caper}} "evidently knew nothing about books{{mdashb}}or, at least, about selling them{{nbsp}}... There was no explanation of what he expected to do with the Bible."{{hsp}}{{r|metcalf1988|p=72}}

Only the books' bindings (which were "not valuable [and] did just what a good binding is supposed to do: they protected the inside contents"){{r|suspect}} were damaged.{{r|slips}}
Since the incident only one or the other Bible volume is on display at any given time{{r|klepts|p=E}}
and a replica has been substituted at times of heightened security concern.{{NoteTag
|{{r|crime_1969}}
Extensive news coverage of the theft attempt triggered a flurry of inquiries to Harvard about the potential value of family bibles and Gutenberg-related bric-a-brac.{{ran|B|pp=146-7}}
<!--end enf>>-->}}

=== 1969 Vietnam War protests ===

In the spring of 1969, during [[1969–1970 Harvard University anti-Vietnam War protests|Harvard student demonstrations against the war in Vietnam]], rumors spread of a possible attack on Widener.{{r|echoes}}{{r|cambridge02138}}
Following the occupation of [[University Hall (Harvard University)|University Hall]] by protesters, and their subsequent violent ejection by police, volunteer librarians and faculty stood watch inside Widener for several nights.{{r|fainsod}}

==="The Slasher"===

Around 1990, empty bindings stripped of their pages began to appear in the Widener stacks. Eventually some 600 mutilated books were discovered, the vandal particularly targeting works on early Christianity in Greek, Latin, or unusual languages such as [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]].{{r|destroyer}}
Notes left at Widener, and later at [[Northeastern University]], threatened graphically described mutilations of library workers, cyanide gas attacks,{{r|slasher}}
and bombings of libraries and a local bank.{{r|calder}}
Other notes instructed that $500,000 be left in a Northeastern library, demanded that Northeastern "terminate all Jew personnel", and directed that $1{{nbsp}}million be left in the Widener stacks:
{{sic|"pUt THe mONEy FucKer BEhiNd THE eLevATOR on D{{nbsp}}WEST in THE basemENT WhERE tHe 1,000,000.00 dollaRS IN rare GreEK bOOks wAS slASHEd ApARt [[Jacques Paul Migne|MIGNE]] [[Patrologia Graeca|GREEK PATROLOGIA]]."|hide=y}}
These "ransom drops" were staked out by the [[FBI]],{{NoteTag|
{{r|slasher}} According to the ''Harvard Crimson'', officers on stakeout duty were easily recognized: "not browsing the great literature on the shelves, but perusing a ''Boston Herald'', coffee in hand."{{r|stakeout}}
}}
and surveillance cameras installed in ersatz books, without result.{{r|without_result}}

In 1994 police connected an incident at Northeastern, in which a library worker there (a former Widener employee) was caught stealing chemistry books, with the fact that chemistry texts had been among the works mutilated at Widener.{{r|destroyer}}{{Dead link|date=December 2024}}
Officials found "a kind of renegade reference room" in the worker's basement,{{r|zoll}}
including library books, piles of ripped-out pages, a [[microfilm]] camera, and hundreds of unusable microfilms he had haphaz{{shy}}ardly made of the books (worth $180,000) he had destroyed.{{r|destroyer}}<!--add in Northeastern stats if they can be found-->
At trial "The Slasher" said he had acted in revenge for the eighteen months he had been detained in a state [[psychiatric hospital]] after expiration of a six-month jail term he had received for a minor offense.{{r|slasher}}