How were his stolen books identified and returned?
The Omaha Project
After Blumberg's arrest, the 19 tons of books removed from his home in Ottumwa, Iowa were taken to a secret FBI warehouse in Omaha, Nebraska in order to be processed. It required 3,500 feet of metal shelving to hold the books. (Basbanes, 1995)
Blumberg took effort to conceal the origin of the over 23,000 books that he stole. Some institutions didn’t even realize that Blumberg had stolen from them. A survey was sent out to 170 institutions from whom items had been stolen. Only 14 reported back they knew that Blumberg had taken items from them. Hence, the task of returning them to the rightful institutions was no small feat. The Omaha office of the FBI relied on volunteers to categorize books and help identify their rightful owners.
Throughout the process of relocating Blumberg’s books to libraries across the United States, a team of local librarians and Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) employees pulled together to help the FBI return the stolen books to their owners. Of the local librarians, Creighton University lent 10 employees as volunteers. The relocation process from the secret warehouse somewhere in Omaha took about 6 months, but without the help of librarians and OCLC, the FBI estimated the returning the books would have taken years to complete.
After the relocation process was completed, over 3,000 rare books that could not returned to their original owner remained in the warehouse. Many of the books could not be returned because universities or libraries did not want to confirm any books had been stolen due to embarrassment about breaches in their security systems. For the astounding work that Creighton employees performed, many working extra hours unpaid, the FBI gave Creighton University the leftover books. These books now form part of the Creighton University Libraries collection.
Although the entire Creighton Community was proud of their librarians’ committed work, ultimately leading to this valuable collection, some members of the Community were less impressed with the FBI’s decision. Some argued that the FBI—a federal agency—should not give the books to a private, religiously-affiliated institution due to the principle of separation of church and state. Now, almost 35 years after the collection was given to Creighton, the books are still enjoyed by professors and students alike.