Creighton Collection from the Omaha Project

After seizing Blumberg’s collection from his Ottumwa, Iowa home, the FBI transferred his collection to the nearest FBI Regional Headquarters. This was in Omaha Nebraska. The FBI quickly realized they were ill-prepared or equipped to archive, estimate value and identify the rightful owners of the stolen collection. The FBI enlisted the help of librarians and archivists across the United States, to assist in the massive task of working through the estimated twenty-five thousand book collection. Creighton University librarians volunteered over 50% of the man hours. After all of the identifiable books and antiques had been returned to their rightful owner, an estimated four thousand books’ owners remained unidentified. These books were donated to Creighton University as thanks for their work. In the following years, Creighton librarians archived and organized the remaining collection from the Omaha Project. After archiving the donated books, around three thousand were donated from Creighton to surrounding local libraries. Books that were evaluated to hold special value to the University were kept and scattered across the library between the regular stacks and the rare books room.

This data breaks down the remaining Creighton collection, not the entire Blumberg collection, by publication year. Using this collection as a representative sample size for the larger Blumberg collection, it is obvious Blumberg targeted books from the 19th Century. While less readily available, Blumberg was still able to collect an impressive number of books predating the 19th century.