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James Shinn

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James Shinn (1936-2005)
The book thief James Shinn had the most profound and direct influence on Stephen Blumberg. Blumberg admitted that he was fascinated by Shinn “like a moth drawn to a flame.” Born in 1932, Shinn was a lifelong thief, and in the 1970s his thefts increasingly began to focus on the rare book trade. Shinn meticulously reviewed library catalogs to compile his a “hitlist” of the most valuable books and studied library security techniques to learn the best tips and tricks to avoid detection. From there, he and his wife traveled across the country carrying out their thefts at university libraries, with the stolen property estimated to be close to a million dollars. He carried with him a number of tools used to remove library identifiers from the books; these included shoe polish to cover markings on bindings, and fake title pages to replace ones stamped with the library seal. When finally arrested in Bethlehem, PA in 1981, Shinn was wanted in several states for theft and was ultimately sentenced to twenty years in federal prison.

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The book thief James Shinn had the most profound and direct influence on Stephen Blumberg. Blumberg admitted that he was fascinated by Shinn “like a moth drawn to a flame.” Born in 1932, Shinn was a lifelong thief, and in the 1970s his thefts increasingly began to focus on the rare book trade. Shinn meticulously reviewed library catalogs to compile his a “hitlist” of the most valuable books and studied library security techniques to learn the best tips and tricks to avoid detection. From there, he and his wife traveled across the country carrying out their thefts at university libraries, with the stolen property estimated to be close to a million dollars. He carried with him a number of tools used to remove library identifiers from the books; these included shoe polish to cover markings on bindings, and fake title pages to replace ones stamped with the library seal. When finally arrested in Bethlehem, PA in 1981, Shinn was wanted in several states for theft and was ultimately sentenced to twenty years in federal prison.

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“James Shinn,” Creighton University Libraries: Archives & Special Collections, accessed January 16, 2025, https://creightonarchives.omeka.net/items/show/203.

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