Xuhui District People's Court has sentenced a book lover to five months of detention for stealing 385 books from a handful of community libraries in the district, the court said Friday.
The defendant, surnamed Wang, was found guilty of theft for taking the books, which were worth more than 3,200 yuan ($513), according to a press release from the court.
Wang, who is in his 50s, began stealing the books after he obtained a library card in March 2011.
He would steal the books after returning them to the library. He would take them after the librarians had checked them back in, but before they replaced the books' magnetic security devices and returned them to the shelves. This allowed him to take the books out of the library without setting off the security system.
After a while, librarians began to notice that some books were missing from the shelves even though the computer system showed the books had been returned.
Eventually, someone noticed that the missing books had been lent out to Wang just before they disappeared.
Wang had not considered that it was a crime to take the books until the police showed up at his home last September, the court said.
"He told the court that he kept the books, which were mainly classic novels, purely out of a love of reading," Ma Chao, a court press officer, told the Global Times.
The court ordered Wang to return all of the stolen volumes and also fined him 1,000 yuan.
The Shenzhen-based Daily Sunshine reported in October that a local man was sentenced to 10 months in prison with a one-year reprieve and a 1,000-yuan fine after he stole 322 books worth 3,951 yuan from libraries and bookstores in the city. He told authorities that he only stole the books to learn new skills.
Copyright ©1999-2011 Chinanews.com. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
