The Eugene Police Department is charging a Eugene resident for stealing books from the Knight Library and then selling them on eBay, according to EPD Detective Steve Williams.
Williams said Douglas Collver allegedly sold about 250 “fairly obscure” books on the popular Internet auction site, most of which cost less than $100 although many were 75 to 150 years old. The books were not part of a special collection.
The library filed a report of stolen books with EPD on March 4, Williams said. He said a man from Los Angeles bought a book on eBay and took it to a local book dealer, who noticed a faint University library seal on it. The man contacted the library and sent the book for examination. When the library looked up the book on its computer system, it indicated the book had not been checked out, and the library then contacted EPD, Williams said.
EPD used information provided by the Los Angeles man and the library to find the suspect, Williams said. The detective created an e-mail address and bid on a book for sale from the same person who sold the University’s book to the California man.
Williams gave the seller the address to the Corvallis police station, and upon winning the auction found the payment was directed to an apartment on 7th Avenue in Eugene.
Williams said EPD officers obtained a search warrant on March 12 to search the apartment, which Collver shares with his girlfriend and child.
EPD officers seized Collver’s computer and used it to obtain a list of all the books Collver allegedly offered on eBay. They then showed the list to the library to cross-reference with its stock-on-hand.
University Librarian Deborah Carver said the library is checking to see if any of the books belonged to them, but it is a long process because many of the eBay listings don’t have the exact book title. Carver said she is confident that a significant number of the books were from the library.
She added that this was the library’s first case of auction fraud as well as its first case of major book theft since the late 1980s.
Williams said Collver, who was on probation for another crime, turned himself in to his probation officer on March 29. Collver had pledged to turn himself in sooner but failed to do so. According to Williams, Collver claimed to have personal business to attend to before being taken into custody.
EPD is holding Collver on charges of first degree theft, which is theft of more than $750, selling stolen property and computer crime, Williams said.
Beyond these charges, Collver has seven outstanding warrants in Marion, Linn, Benton and Lane counties, Williams said.
Williams said online-auction fraud is fairly common in Eugene.
“We get a lot of eBay fraud cases,” he said, adding that victims of these cases have been located all over the country, and some in other parts of the world. It is difficult, however, to get victims from outside of Oregon to the trials to testify against suspects.
“If the dollar amount is high enough, (the cases) usually get federal attention,” he said.
Carver said she doesn’t know how Collver was able to get the books past the security system.
“We have a good and reliable security system,” she said. “It’s the one in place in most libraries.”
She added that it’s not airtight, but the library has no plans to change the system.
Carver said book dealers aren’t interested in buying books with library seals and stealing from the library isn’t worth it.
“(Selling stolen books) might work for awhile,” Carver said. “But eventually someone will alert the owning library.”
She added that eBay and other organizations have good mechanisms in place to alert authorities.
An eBay representative said that the organization had no one to speak on this issue.