Thefts Cost Bookstore $39,000

More than $39,000 in textbooks was stolen from the Kenyon Bookstore in approximately a week at the beginning of August, according to Chief Business Officer Mark Kohlman. College officials and Bookstore employees are still finalizing the exact value of the stolen textbooks and working in collaboration with the Sheriff's office, which is managing the investigation, according to Kohlman.

Before fall 2007, textbooks were located in the Bookstore's basement Textbook Department. "There were pretty elaborate security procedures [there]," Nugent said. These included a coat and bag check at the door and limited hours. Although the new organization - selling textbooks upstairs with the rest of the Bookstore merchandise - may have increased convenience, its security may have been compromised.

The thieves focused on "high volume, high-priced books, like economics textbooks, that are used all over central Ohio ... [that thieves would] probably be able to sell somewhere else," Kohlman said.

"We've done several counts of the books, but we're still finalizing the exact figure," Kohlman said. Bookstore employees were waiting until students had finished buying their textbooks before making a final estimate of the goods stolen.

According to President S. Georgia Nugent, "there were not signs of a break-in," and authorities are unsure of how the crime was accomplished.

"We don't really know how it happened," Kohlman said. "We suspect that it's a group of professionals who know what they're looking for and go in and out as quickly as they can."

Nugent added that the College does not know whether the theft occurred at one time or over several incidents. "[The investigation] is ongoing, but as far as I know we don't have any information yet," she said.

The thefts provoked radical changes in the Bookstore's security measures, according to Kohlman. With the exception of the "rush period," the Thursday through Monday when most students bought their books, students were required to have a staff person accompany them when buying textbooks. "We felt that this was important because it gives us control over who goes in and out [and] what books are taken," Kohlman said. "There were [also] physical changes to all the locks ... and right now we're evaluating proposals for other security things, [like] electronic article surveillance." This system would be similar to the security system in the library, where tagged items set off an alarm if carried out without being deactivated.

Both Nugent and Kohlman refused to comment on whether former Bookstore Manager Hugh Resnick '91, who left the College at the end of August, was fired, but Nugent said Resnick's departure was not related to the thefts. A search for a new manager will begin soon, and according to Kohlman, a job announcement will be ready by the end of the week.

"My goal is to, by January, get through the process and get somebody identified [to fill the position]," Kohlman said. "The Senior Staff is meeting this week and will have some discussions about what the priorities are, but we haven't actually laid down exactly what we're going to look for [in the new manager]." In the meantime, an interim manager will be appointed, according to Nugent. It will be someone currently employed by the College, who will hold the position until a new manager can be found, she said.

"[The search will] be both national and regional," Nugent said. "I think our expectation is that the most likely candidate is regional. It's possible that someone from within the College would apply." Nugent said the Bookstore "intends to remain independent."

Kohlman said he foresees some changes to the Bookstore during the upcoming year. "What I'd like to see is kind of a balance," he said. "We want to be a great bookstore - fiction, non-fiction - but at the same time only about 12 percent of our sales come from trade books [published literature, as opposed to textbooks] and we can't function as just a trade bookstore, so we have to sell T-shirts and sweatshirts and mugs and all that stuff."