This would, of course, be tremendously expensive, what with the cash we'd have to pay some fool to place small magnetic strips on ten million books. But the benefits would likely be worth it. The system is virtually foolproof. No more books would be stolen.
A third option is the honor system, which, in essence, we use already. We currently have all the disadvantages of an honor system (stolen books) and none of the advantages (feeling of trust between administration and students, money saved that we now pay to useless checkers.
Dartmouth College Library has no security. Neither does the Divinity School. Theoretically, one could walk out of each with a shopping bag full of loot. But, as a Div. School librarian told me, the cost of paying checkers is more than the cost of replacing stolen books. (Besides, if you steal a book from the Divinity School, you go straight to hell anyway.)
I wanted to ask University Librarian Sidney Verba '53 about the possibilities of reforming the bag-checker system, but he wasn't around to be interviewed.
THE waste of the current system is enormous. Paying a guard for an eight-hour shift at the standard rate of $7.75 per hour (many earn more) costs $62, not even including benefits and payroll taxes. That means that Harvard shells something like $180,000 per academic year just to protect the six libraries I looted.
Yet books, magazines, dictionaries--you name it--are still stolen every day. Our tuition goes not only to replace those materials (many of which are rare and quite expensive), but we also have to pay for these book-checkers to listen to their Walkmans and arch their necks each time they pass by. Add to that the cost though is the frustration of doing without stolen books and magazines that haven't been replaced, and you have a serious problem.
This inefficient and wasteful system is not a victimless crime. Libraries eat up a good chunk of the University's budget and waste a lot of money that could be spent on much-needed facilities and services.
"Shhh," I imagine the checkers saying to me each time I leave the library. "I'll keep our little secret if you do."
The secret's out, folks.