Last week, PW spoke with booksellers who suffered losses inflicted by book theft rings and individual shoplifters. In this concluding article, we look at how booksellers successfully battle those losses to their already slim margins.

Whatever the reason—more on- or off-line resale, the lousy economy, increasingly literate crooks—there has been a decided increase in thefts in the past few years. For David Didriksen, owner of Willow Books & Cafe in Acton, Mass., shoplifting is the worst it's been since he started in the book business 27 years ago. "It's rampant—triple what it was before," he said. A year and a half ago, he installed multiple cameras at Willow Books & Cafe, which has cut the number of thefts in half. He finds the cameras particularly helpful in identifying "repeat customers."

Gayle Shanks, owner of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Ariz., has also gotten serious about reducing book theft. "As we're all trying to get more profitable, what we lose in both directions—internal and external—is huge for us. As owners of stores, as much as we don't want to believe it, these are big issues. I've had my eyes closed for too long; I've had enough," Shanks told PW. In November 2002, she installed a security system and started checking backpacks and large purses at the door. "When we encounter resistance," said Shanks, "we suggest that they might want to leave them in their car or come back another time." In addition, Shanks posts little signs around the store asking customers to refrain from stealing, and she makes sure that staff members greet each customer as they enter. "It's something we emphasize at every staff meeting," says Shanks. "You want to get them before they steal anything."

Shanks has also stopped carrying frequently stolen books: expensive art and photography titles, books on or about growing marijuana, and books by Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski. In addition, she keeps in touch with nearby bookstores about security issues. That's how she found out about a thief who was picking up receipts in the parking lot, then coming into the store to find the books and asking for his money back.

Even if booksellers can't catch someone in the act of stealing, they can ban that person from the store. At 25-year-old Books & Cases & Prints &c. in Atlanta, Ga., which specializes in rare books, owner Virginia Velleca won't allow a local labor lawyer to enter her store. "I can't tell him why," she said, "but I can tell him not to come in. I've never caught him red-handed, but he's a known shoplifter. I learned about him from other people." She also advises that booksellers check with police before purchasing security cameras—a lesson she learned the hard way. Although her security cameras recently caught a man stuffing a copy of William Faulkner's novel Mosquitoes (valued at $3,500) into his pants, the picture quality of the video wasn't sufficiently clear enough for local police to prosecute.

Stop, Thief!

For some booksellers, it's not the daily accretion of shrinkage but a particularly egregious theft that causes them to get serious about security. That's the case with the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver, which lost roughly $150,000 worth of inventory to a ring operated by the owners of a local used bookstore, Ichabod's Books, who pled guilty to accepting stolen books in 2000. "The experience of that degree of loss caused us to install gates and security cameras. Those are not inexpensive items, but they are cheaper than being exposed to a theft ring," said Neil Strandberg, manager of operations. He understands that it can be difficult for booksellers used to thinking of a bookstore as a peaceful oasis to view customers with suspicion. "Even if you don't intervene," he tells new staffers, "nothing will breed repetition like success. Telling one of the managers will help us pull pictures from the cameras so the store can be ready for the second visit."

Strandberg advises booksellers to work closely with their local police. "I am almost certain that if we didn't have a person to present our case to law enforcement, they would have had no way to know about the thefts," he told PW. "Law enforcement gets very interested in thefts of tens of thousands of dollars." In the Ichabod's case, Tattered Cover, which was not the only store that was hit, assisted law enforcement by inventorying Ichabod's frequently.

Book Passage in Corte Madera, Calif., also worked closely with law enforcement to break up a ring in 1996. In that case, the ring operated as far south as San Diego and as far north as Vancouver. "We went to our local police department and asked if we could cooperate by having off-duty policemen here," recalled co-owner Elaine Petrocelli. She credits Sgt. Michael McDuffy with getting the thieves, including the fence who made $6 million in 10 years of bookselling. "It's important to be nice to the cops," said Petrocelli, "and I don't mean pay them off. Follow through with what you do. Even if it's a little old lady who takes a magazine. Our police know we will go all the way through to the conviction."

Don't get discouraged if the thief is given a light sentence, advised Petrocelli. The head guy in the case involving Book Passage was sentenced to several years in jail, but most of that was suspended, and he was released after eight weeks. However, he was rearrested for parole violation after more stolen books were found.

Even with increased watchfulness, Book Passage is not entirely crime-free. "We still have theft," said Petrocelli, who noted that the most frequently shoplifted sections are spirituality and religion. "The thing that scares me now is that they have closed their used bookstores and often go to WiFi cafes."

David Bolduc, owner of Boulder Book Store, is one of the few booksellers who has had anti-theft systems in place for more than two decades. "Margins are so slim, you could lose all your margins to book theft," said Bolduc, whose most frequently stolen titles are the Bible, followed by expensive books, and the works of the Beat poets. In addition to an EAS system, Bolduc installed 25 cameras in the store. For him, it's the cost of doing business, as is arresting customers, if necessary. "We arrest 10 to 15 people a year," said Bolduc, who advises booksellers to first find out what their local laws are concerning arrests. "When the police come here, we've already filled out their forms for them and taken the person's picture," he said. "Most of the time the police know the people and have warrants for them. Many people think you can't do this kind of stuff, but it's like your house. What's your business worth to you?"

Making Crime Pay... Literally

The 32,000-sq.-ft. University of California, Santa Barbara Bookstore, which has 80 cameras and a control room with 30 monitors, is even more aggressive about pursuing shoplifters, and decreasing other types of in-store crimes such as robbery and sexual assault. "When I came in 1980, we were a $2 million store and it didn't make a lot of sense to put much money into security," recalled director Ken Bowers, a former president of the National Association of College Stores (NACS). The store tried one of the early EAS systems but ended up removing it, because they had to unplug it during book rush. By 1996, when sales rose to $14 million and shrinkage was $300,000 to $350,000, UCSB hired former police officer Will Wood and developed an asset protection system. A manual for the system, which includes information on interviewing techniques, evidence handling and surveillance systems, is available on CD-ROM from NACS.

Bowers credits the store's beefed-up security system—UCSB videotapes can be seen on TV's America's Most Wanted—with reducing loss to $50,000, which it has since eliminated through fines. It is one of the few bookstores to use civil recovery, or civil demand, which is available in most states, to charge thieves not just for the cost of the goods stolen, but the cost of protecting the merchandise. "The typical student [caught stealing] gets fined between $200 and $500, "said Bowers. "If it's an obvious burglary, it's $500. We've been averaging a couple hundred theft cases a year. We've never lost one. My guess is we're getting between 80% and 90% of shoplifters."

Obviously, not everyone can afford to install the massive systems that UCSB has. But every bookseller who has put in some type of system has cut shrinkage significantly, often by as much as half. It's still a lot more effective than this curse attributed to the Monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona: "For him that Stealeth a Book from this Library/ Let it change into a Serpent in his hand & rend him/ Let him be struck with Palsy, & all his Members blasted/ Let the flames of hell consume him for ever & aye."