A neat followup to Saturday's post on Manchester librarian Norman Buckley, who stole more than 400 items from the Manchester Central Library: Grumpy Old Bookman publishes the statement made to police by the Somerset bookseller who cracked the case and alerted the library to the thefts.
The report is an excellent write-up of the events as they unfolded, revealing that the American bookseller who first raised questions about the items up for auction on eBay was Vic Zoschack of Tavistock Books; Clive Keeble of Keeble Antiques noticed the alert and contacted the Manchester library, getting the ball rolling and eventually stopping Buckley in his tracks.
As GOB adds, "I think this case demonstrates a number of things, not least that there are some very responsible and public-spirited people around in the secondhand and antiquarian book trade, and such integrity deserves to be recognised. Hint: buy more books from them." Quite so.
