British Library mislays 9,000 books

Summary

March 17, 2009: The British Library is missing more than 9,000 books from its shelves, although it insists that the majority of them is "mislaid" instead of stolen. Some of these books have not been seen for more than 50 years. One of the missing volumes is worth more than £20,000.

See Also

• Library

Source

Bibliography

1. Original article

Game and Story Use

• Not finding a certain Tome Of Eldritch Lore which has the precise incantation they need to stop the Eldritch Abomination merely because the library misplaced it can be deeply frustrating to the player characters.
  • It can be even more fun if the villains seek the same tome. And since the librarians can't help them, all they can do is break into the library at night and search for it… while fighting the bad guys seeking the same book and avoiding making enough noise to alert the police!
• Were the books lost or were they "lost"? Who benefits from these books disappearing? What could possibly be hidden in them? And how far up does this go?
• Imagine the joy in breaking up a friend or relative's estate and finding that you have fifty years worth of late fees to pay on a book from the British Library …
• Alternatively, an otherwise hard to trace villain is suddenly located when their name comes up against a list of overdue library books…