Charles Darwin's notebooks reported stolen from Cambridge University

UngulateNerd92

UngulateNerd92

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Two Charles Darwin manuscripts have been reported as stolen from Cambridge University library two decades after they were last seen.

Staff believed the precious items had been “mis-shelved” within the vast archives late in 2000 and the matter was not reported to Cambridgeshire police until 20 October this year. The force said it has launched an investigation and notified Interpol.

Charles Darwin's notebooks reported stolen from Cambridge University
 
It's a terrible thing to have happened, but unfortunately mis-shelving of items does happen, so to think this was the case for so long wasn't unusual. It was reported by the BBC that a fingertip search of the library shelving is being done, but that this would take 5 years. It would be interesting to know if records still exist for who requested the photography back in 2000, and who signed the items out and back in. Procedures change, and 2000 is now quite some time ago. The library at the time was also undergoing renovations, so photography was undertaken outside the main buildings, in a temporary studio building.

Thankfully the notebooks have been fully digitised, but a digital copy is never going to be a replacement for the original items :(

Charles Darwin: Notebooks worth millions lost for 20 years
 
I don't wish to minimise this loss and I sincerely hope that these notebooks are found or recovered undamaged, but they are not as important to humanity as a great work of art (I'm thinking of Vermeer or Monet rather than Banksy) or a great building and far less important than the loss of a species (any species). Darwin's importance is based on his ideas, which can't be lost or stolen - although they be denied or distorted. Works of art can be restored or reproduced, even ones as large as Notre Dame. But the dodo is dead as a dodo and will, as far as we know, be so forever. And it has been, is being and will be joined by a multitude of equally irreplaceable creatures.
 
I could swear the book/page was on display at the Charles Darwin exhibit at the NHM about 10 years ago. There was a lot of merchandise for sale in the dedicated shop with the "I think" theme - I bought a t-shirt in fact. This was definitely after 2000 - perhaps I'm misremembering, but why have such merchandise if the artefact itself was never on display there?

As a former library shelving assistant at the NHM, I can testify to the commonness of mis-shelved items at that institution (not those I would have mis-shelved myself!). But there was always a system for, even commonplace in-print material, tracking down the previous loaner, as it was always logged. Once it's mis-shelved, who knows where it would end up? I'm hopeful it's out there somewhere, on the shelf of the Library or in a dusty office somewhere in the University, of a since-retired professor perhaps?
 
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