Book Thefts: National Library of Sweden

Status 23 May 2017: UPDATED LIST!

ILAB has received an updated list of the books stolen in Sweden - Please pay attention to this update! See PDF below!

Swedes Find Stolen Atlas in New York

"He was entrusted to guard Sweden’s cultural heritage, but instead this senior librarian spent years surreptitiously stealing and selling scores of its rare and precious books. When the thief, Anders Burius, was finally caught in 2004, the media called him the “Royal Library Man,” and his sensational crime and subsequent suicide became the subjects of a government inquiry, a radio documentary and, last year, a television mini-series. Now, for the first time, one of the missing books — the earliest printed atlas of the Americas — has been recovered by Sweden’s Royal Library after a librarian there noticed that it was being offered for sale …” Read the whole article by Patricia Cohen in The New York Times

>>> Swedes Find Stolen Atlas in New York. By Patricia Cohen

US Returns To Sweden Millions in Antique Books Stolen by Suicidal Librarian

In the 1990s rare and valuable 17th century books were stolen from the National Library of Sweden. Now some of them have been returned to Sweden with the help of two American antiquarian booksellers. The official repatriation ceremony took place in Manhattan, New York.

"The antiques had been stolen in the 1990s by Anders Burius, a senior librarian who pilfered at least 56 books from the library, according to court documents. During the ceremony, which was attended by Sweden's national librarian, Gunilla Herdenberg, deputy US attorney Richard Zabel expressed his pride in assisting in the return of the books, noting that "in many ways, the library contains the cultural memory of Sweden. The theft of piece of a nation's memory and heritage creates holes in its intellectual soul."

>>> Read the whole story in The Art Newspaper

Picture: Kungbib, via Wikimedia Commons