DVDs vanish off library shelves
High theft rate forces Gwinnett to cut back

By DUANE D. STANFORD
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 10/26/05
Thieves in Gwinnett County have lifted enough DVDs from public library shelves to fill more than two video stores and wipe out nearly half the system's collection.

The thefts got so bad — nearly 17,000 discs in all —the library board quietly shut down the 5-year-old program last month and began selling off the remaining inventory.

"It's disgusting," said board Chairman Dan English.

Parents who relied on the DVDs to inexpensively entertain and educate their youngsters agree. They now have to go to video stores to rent DVDs they had borrowed for free. Parents also are angry that the library board sold off the collection without their input.

Beth McCloy of Buford had no idea DVD loans had been eliminated until a recent trip to her branch.

"After I picked myself off the floor, I said. 'You've got to be kidding,' " recalled McCloy, who used the DVDs as part of a home school curriculum for her three children.

"It's a shame that the small percentage of the population takes the enjoyment, the freedom and the availability of these items from everyone else," McCloy said. "Everyone suffers."

McCloy and others want the program back. But the library board isn't likely to relent.

"The economics don't add up right now," English said.

The lost discs have already cost the taxpayer-funded library system about $250,000, administrators estimated. They say better DVD security would cost at least $150,000 a year, money the system can't afford for a collection that accounts for less than 4 percent of all checkouts.

Gwinnett's collection included only children's titles, such as those featuring Barney and Wiggles, and educational selections from producers like National Geographic. The only feature-length movies were "Cinderella" and similar titles.

Librarians first started noticing DVDs were missing a couple of years ago. Parents arrived home from the library with DVD cases that turned out to be empty. Or DVDs would be missing from shelves, even though the library's computer system showed they had not been checked out.

Library workers didn't catch on to the scope of the problem until early 2004. A routine inventory showed the DVDs were missing at a higher rate than books, CDs, magazines and other materials.

Suspicious, administrators called the system's 12 branches and asked librarians to look inside the cases to see if they still contained discs. Many were empty.

In all, thieves made off with 44 percent of the system's roughly 39,000 DVDs. Theft rates for other types of materials, such as books, are less than 2 percent, marketing director Cindy Murphy said.

Librarians aren't sure how the discs disappeared, but they assume most were slipped out of their cases inside the libraries. Had the discs disappeared after being checked out, the culprits could have been traced.

"I would really hate to think that there was some parent ripping them off, and having some little kid by the hand and saying this is OK," Murphy said.

English said at least one library patron reported seeing a teen slip a DVD into a portable CD player and walk out as if listening to music.

Unique to Gwinnett?

Library systems in other large metro Atlanta counties haven't reported the same excessive theft rates, but some of their DVD collections are much smaller. DeKalb County has about 9,000 videos. Cobb just started its collection, which is nearing 2,000 discs. Both counties use locking boxes — like those used at video rental stores — to discourage five-finger discounts. Atlanta-Fulton County's library system is looking for a way to better secure its nearly 19,000 DVDs after thefts there.

Other libraries nationwide have struggled with DVD thefts. An Oregon man was convicted in July of stealing $3,000 worth of DVDs from a public library, according to news reports. Police found them stacked in his home.

Other libraries have stumbled upon stolen inventory at stores that buy and sell used DVDs. A Cleveland librarian several years ago found more than 800 DVDs at a used bookstore with library tags still on them.

Central checkout fails

Gwinnett created a centralized checkout last year to try to curb thefts. Patrons reserved discs on-line to be picked up at their local branch. Murphy said roughly 70 percent of the collection went unused and DVDs still disappeared.

Library directors then moved the less popular educational titles back to the floor so they didn't simply collect dust. For two months theft rates stayed low before spiking to nearly 25 percent.

Directors considered putting electronic dispensers at each branch, but the technology would have cost $150,000 a year, Murphy said.

The board studied keeping the discs locked away behind a counter, but patrons scan most of their own checkouts. Administrators estimated it would cost a minimum of $172,000 a year for employees to handle every DVD transaction.

"That's a lot of impact on other services," Murphy said. The library system's annual budget is about $17.6 million, most of which comes from county taxpayers.

The library board instead sold off the collection. The only videos now left — about 5,000 — are still checked out.

Library Executive Director Jo Ann Pinder acknowledged patrons should have been notified of the change. "It fell through the cracks," she said. "There's no excuse for that."

But Pinder argued the library's primary mission is to teach and encourage children to read, not watch DVDs.

"We're in the book business," she said. "Give me a whole bunch of money, and I can do everything for everybody."

English said he hopes the price of the electronic dispensers will eventually come down. Meanwhile, the thieves are still at work.

On Friday, Pinder got word from one of her branches that 27 DVDs on a hold shelf had disappeared.

Smiley's website states that during his 25 years in business that he has "built several of the largest collections of American cartographic materials in this country, including the Norman Leventhal collection of New England maps and the Lawrence H. Slaughter collection of English maps and atlases - now at the New York Public Library."