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Dear colleagues in the art library world,

We, in Ohio, have recently discovered a very disturbing new trend in
vandalism in our libraries, and I would like to bring it to your attention
and ask if you have experienced the same.

For several months many of the academic libraries in Ohio have been aware
of someone vandalizing library books by razoring out pictures of young
boys.  The images are usually photographs, are almost never provocative,
erotic, or otherwise likely candidates for razoring, in fact to the
contrary the pictures are usually quite innocent images of young boys
(adolescents).  Often if the young boy appears in an image with other
people or objects, only the young boy has been razored out.  We believe the
vandalism  occurs in the library, and not by a person who checks out the
material.  The books that have been damaged are not always art books, as
some of them fall into other library subject categories such as geography,
history, etc.

This has been going on for at least several months.  Many of us thought the
problem was unique to our library, and did not realize that this was
occurring across the state.  Only when we attempted to borrow our
colleagues copies via ILL did we realize that the same books were missing
the same images in multiple locations across the state.

University police at the various locations have been called in to
investigate.  One theory (and it is only a theory at this point, we have no
definite leads) is that there might be an Internet site that encourages
this activity, rather like the fetish for Absolut Vodka ads we all
witnessed awhile ago.  For that reason, I would like to ask you:

1) are you aware of this problem in your library, specifically related to
images of young boys?

2) have you heard anything about this phenomenon that would help us put an
end to this?

Thank you for any information you can share.  Please respond DIRECTLY TO ME
(<a href="/scripts/wa.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind9709%26L%3DARLIS-L%26E%3D7BIT%26P%3D336906%26B%3D--%26T%3Dtext%252FplainTEXT%252FPLAIN%3B%2520charset%3DUS-ASCII%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>) and not to the list.

Susan Wyngaard, Head
Fine Arts Library
Ohio State University
Wexner Center for the Arts
Columbus, Ohio 43210
tel&fax: 614-292-6184
email: <a href="/scripts/wa.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind9709%26L%3DARLIS-L%26E%3D7BIT%26P%3D336906%26B%3D--%26T%3Dtext%252FplainTEXT%252FPLAIN%3B%2520charset%3DUS-ASCII%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>