Just days after announcing a new website to highlight its map collection, the Boston Public Library has released to map dealers a list of some three dozen rare maps which are missing from its holdings, the Boston Globe reports. "The maps that are still missing were from books and atlases used by E. Forbes Smiley III, a rare maps dealer with a home on Martha's Vineyard." Smiley was sentenced in September to three and a half years in prison after a plea deal in which he admitted to the theft of 90-some maps from various institutions. He is widely believed to have been responsible for far more thefts.
Among the missing maps is one drawn by Samuel de Champlain in 1613 showing what was then termed "New France."
