A former University of Hawaii student described by his lawyer as a “bibliophile obsessed with books” is suspected of stealing nearly 200 rare, historic and valuable books from Hamilton Library on the U.H. Manoa campus. Read more: http://www.kitv.com/news/28416128/detail.html#ixzz1QvNQ8cLL

IBNA: According to news, thursday night, police officers returned 30 boxes of the books seized from the Waikiki apartment of the suspect earlier in the day by an HPD detective.

They're travel books about the Pacific and Asia and some art books published from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s, according to Alan Grosenheider, Associate University Librarian.

"This one is kind of interesting in that it's the Northern Pacific exploration and here's indigenous languages of the Pacific Northwest," Grosenheider said as he flipped through several of the books after picking them up from police.

He was alarmed that the books were packed in boxes ready to be mailed elsewhere.

"It would make one think that these were about to leave as well, so we were perhaps just in time," he said.

Grosenheider said the case began when he heard from a rare book seller in California who had received some historic books that a man wanted to sell him stamped with the University of Hawaii's logo.

"So he called to see if we had withdrawn them or if they were still our property. I checked and they were not withdrawn, they were not checked out and they weren't on the shelves, so they were missing and so presumed stolen," Grosenheider said.

He said the suspected thief mailed six books to the California book seller valued at about $3,300.

The nearly 200 books missing from Hamilton Library are estimated to be worth anywhere from $40,000 to $100,000, he said.

"Not only is there the value of replacement or the value that books have as resale, but the value that they have for our community, for our researchers, for our students," Grosenheider said.

The books are believed to have been stolen incrementally from the UH's main library.

"Because of this incident, we're going to try and improve our security. We think we know how it happened, and so we're going try and prevent it from happening again," Grosenheider said.

Criminal defense attorney Myles Breiner is representing the man accused of the theft. Breiner declined to name him.

Breiner describes the man as a former UH Manoa student who nearly completed his undergraduate degree but took a leave of absence.

He said all but one of the books has been returned and his client is cooperating with police, who have not charged him with a crime yet. Breiner said his client will see to it that the final missing book is returned.

“The books were never damaged,” Breiner said. “The UH didn’t treat them as valuable. If were that valuable, they should have been locked away.”

A UH spokesman said there are three million volumes in the university’s book collection, and Hamilton Library doesn’t have to space to lock up each book that has historic value.

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