大英图书馆9000本书放错书架

大英图书馆中9000多本书不见踪影，但图书馆认为这些书大部分并不是被偷走了，而是放错了书架。这些失踪的书籍价值大约2万英镑，一些书籍已经失踪了50多年......

More than 9,000 books are missing from the British Library, including Renaissance treatises on theology and alchemy, a medieval text on astronomy, first editions of 19th- and 20th-century novels, and a luxury edition of Mein Kampf produced in 1939 to celebrate Hitler's 50th birthday.

大英图书馆中9000多本书不见踪影，包括文艺复兴时期关于神学和炼金术的专著，中世纪天文学著作，19和20世纪的小说初版和1939年出版的为庆祝希特勒50岁寿辰而写的《我的奋斗》奢华版。

The library believes almost all have not been stolen but rather mislaid among its 650km of shelves and 150m items – although some have not been seen in well over half a century.

书馆相信这些书大部分并不是被偷的，而是在长达650千米的书架和150米的书目中被放错了位置，尽管一些书已经超过半个世纪没有被发现了。

 

 

One item, an essay entitled Of the Lawful and Unlawful Usurie Amongest Christians, by 16th-century German theologian Wolfgang Musculus, is valued by the library at £20,000, and has not been seen for almost two years. Others are precious only to a specialist market, such as a set of tables of 1930s London cab fares, or the 1925 souvenir history of Portsmouth Football Club.

16世纪德国神学家沃尔夫钢写的一篇名叫《基督徒中的合法与非法高利贷》的文章，图书馆给它估价为20000英镑，到现在已经失踪接近两年了。其它书籍仅限于某一特定市场比较稀缺，比如一组20世纪30年代伦敦出租车费用的图表，或者一组1925年朴茨茅斯足球俱乐部纪念品历史的图表。

Although the library has not listed any value for thousands of the books, a quick Guardian tot-up of the market price of nine collectible volumes came to well over £3,000 – including £1,300 for a first edition of Oscar Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, published in 1891, missing from the library's shelves since 1961.

虽然图书馆没有列出数千本图书的价值，卫报对图书馆九卷收藏书册作过粗略合计，其市场总值超过3000英镑，其中奥斯卡·王尔德的仅有一本小说的首版，价值是1300元，和1891年出版的道瑞安·格雷先生画像，从1961年起到现在一直没有找到。

Jennifer Perkins, the library's head of records, said that more than 3.5m items are delivered to the reading rooms every year - and the book was not on its correct shelf. Other losses were revealed in rolling audits of the enormous collection.

詹妮弗·珀金斯图书馆的记录长詹妮弗·珀金斯说，每年有超过3.5米长的书册放入阅览室中，但图书没有摆放在正确的架子上。其它的图书丢失是在对馆内巨大的藏书进行流程审计时发现的。

"There are a number of reasons why collection items may not be at their correct shelf location: they may have been misplaced on the shelves, the shelf mark label may have become detached from the spine and the item is being checked and reshelved, or the catalogue record may not have been altered to reflect a changed shelf mark," said Perkins.

珀金斯说，“造成书册没有摆放在正确书架上的原因有很多：它们可能被人放错了书架，而排架号标签从书脊上脱落了下来，这本书正在被核实或重新排放，又或者目录记录没有随着排架号的改变而及时改变。”

The library's greatest treasures, priceless documents including Magna Carta and the Lindisfarne Gospels, are kept in a special gallery with rigorous conservation and security controls.

图书馆最贵重的珍藏品--大宪章和林迪斯福音在内的珍贵文件被严密地保存和监控在专门的图库中。

Perhaps significantly, many of the losses are recorded just before or after 1998, the year the library moved from the British Museum to St Pancras.

或许值得注意的是，根据记录许多图书都是在1998年前后丢失的，而这一年正是图书馆从大英博物馆迁移到圣潘克拉斯的那年。

Most of the losses are 19th and 20th century texts, including first editions of novels by Charles Dickens and John Updike, although many older books have also vanished, including a 1555 edition of 12th-century Jewish scholar Moshe ben Maimon's Letter on Astrology, missing since 1977, and a 17th-century guide to Rome.

虽然许多年代久远的小说也都丢失了，包括12世纪犹太学者迈蒙尼德写的占星术信函1555年版，从1977年起失踪不见，和一本17世纪的罗马旅游指南，但是丢失的图书中大部分是19世纪和20世纪的著作，包括查尔斯·狄更斯和约翰·厄普代克的小说初版。