Take seven municipal libraries in Sendai, Japan as an example. In a year, 1000 books and periodicals "disappeared", and most of them were stolen by "elegant thieves". Faced with such a grim situation, the library was shocked and questioned the morality of readers.
It is reported that seven municipal libraries, including Sendai Citizen Library, have about 65,438+0,565,438+0,000 books, and each library conducts a comprehensive inventory of books every year. The inventory results in 2003 were really surprising. The total number of books without normal borrowing procedures lost from the shelves in seven libraries reached 106 10.
Most of the stolen books are literature, followed by social science and art, and even dictionaries worth more than 1 10,000 yen. Except for the two smaller libraries in Heliugang, the stolen books in the Citizen City, Quanquan, Gongjinuo, Taibai and five libraries in Sendai all reached about 2,000 volumes.
Statistics show that 143 books in 7 libraries were stolen. According to the calculation of 1 this book, 1000 yen, more than1000 million yen in one year belongs to all citizens. Keiko Ikeda, director of the Citizen Library, said in an interview with the media that although the possibility of statistical omission cannot be ruled out, it only accounts for a very small part after all, and the vast majority of books whose whereabouts are unknown are indeed stolen by "wicked" readers. She also said that compared with the previous two years, the number of stolen books in the library showed an obvious upward trend.
In the past, Japanese public libraries charged for borrowing books. Until 1950, the country promulgated the library law, and books were borrowed free of charge. Some people think that if you charge, you can recover the losses caused by the theft of books. There are so many readers who lack moral values now. Is it really necessary to cancel the free lunch?
In addition, the theft of a large number of books is also related to poor library management. For example, although most libraries have lockers for sending bags, many people simply ignore them, and librarians never take the initiative to discourage readers from bringing bags into the library. In some places, on the grounds of "establishing an open library", there are no lockers at all, which naturally gives book thieves an opportunity.
At present, most Japanese libraries are open-shelf, and readers can freely choose the books they want to borrow from the shelves. Nowadays, this convenient measure has opened the door for "elegant thieves" to steal books, and a large number of books have undoubtedly sounded the alarm for the library. Speaking of which, curator Ikeda showed a bitter expression on her face. She said that if all the books are put into the stacks and lent to readers by librarians, this "closed shelf" operation mode can prevent theft to a considerable extent, but after all, it is extremely inconvenient and deprives readers of the fun of choosing books.
In order to reduce losses as much as possible under the premise of convenience for readers, many libraries have to spend a lot of money to install a magnetic induction anti-theft device called BDS (Book Detection System), set up multiple monitors, and send more managers to strengthen patrols. Although these measures have achieved certain results, people in the industry are still worried. In the words of director Ikeda, even if readers don't strengthen their moral concepts, no amount of preventive measures will be in vain. More importantly, once the library becomes heavily guarded, it will undoubtedly make more and more people join the ranks away from books.