The 1880

Cubbies are more dangerous than they look

During the peak times of the school year (I’m thinking along the lines of mid- and end-of-semester), it can be pretty hard to find a seat in Emerson’s library, especially if you”re eyeing those little single-person cubbies hugging the walls. After what seems like an eternity, you”ve found a vacancy, and you must act like the studying beast you are, marking your territory by dropping your things onto the desktop. Then, when you have to get up to get a book, you have to leave the desk you worked so hard to obtain. Of course, the most logical thing to do is to leave your stuff behind to make sure nobody takes your seat.

Well, Emerson Junior Stephanie Appell did just that, leaving her cubby for 15 minutes, and when she returned, someone had not taken her seat, but $3000 worth of her stuff. This includes Stephanie’s PowerBook, brand-new iPod, and week-old cell phone. This is what she had to say:

It is looking increasingly like whoever did this was not a member of the Emerson community, by which I mean an “outside job,” someone who knew what they were doing, knew to dress like a student, come into the library before six o’clock, and just wait for an opportunity to present itself. The objects taken vs. the objects left behind indicate that they were efficient and interested only in items of value. The fact that my wallet ended up in the garbage can on the corner of Boylston and Tremont is probably due to the fact that it only had $15 in it. There are other factors, too, but I’ll leave it at that.
Stephanie’s LiveJournal Post

Stephanie has filed a formal police report and is working to track down the thief and hopefully get her belongings back.

In light of the theft, Stephanie has created a proposal that would make it necessary for students to swipe their Emerson ID at the desk before they entered the library. This means that not only would possible thieves not be able to enter the library but it also would keep track of who was in the library and when. She’s created a Facebook group for those who back up her idea aptly titled “Emerson IDs Should Be Required to Enter the EC Library.”

However, her stance on the security in Emerson’s library hasn’t gone unchallenged. The Facebook group recently became under a small amount of fire in its own message board. Emerson senior Max Goldberg responded on the board expressing his opinion against such a resolution:

I see a basic flaw with the premise: there is an assumption made that Emerson kids don’t regularly steal from people at the library. My four years here have taught me, overwhelmingly, that Emerson kids are just as weasily as anyone else — often times more so, because college kids, *especially* artists, tend to have less money on hand, and thus more reason to steal.

Of course, you’re right that ID swiping would prevent others from using, and thusly stealing from, the EC library. Keep in mind — it also prevents them from using it at all, which is (to me) an awful waste of a great public resource. For example, I don’t know of anywhere else in the region with the such an impressive, *free* collection of plays and screenplays.
Facebook Message Board for the Group

Whether the administration decides to initiate ID swiping for the library, this a good lesson for all students: keep track of your things in the library. Stephanie’s LiveJournal posts are good to learn from. She concludes her post with a warning to all Emerson students:

Well, I can’t say this any clearer: There are “professional” thieves in the Emerson Library. Yes, it’s nice to know that the thief was probably not an Emerson student, but again, this means the alternative is that there are people in the Library who are there solely to wait for you to leave your computer/wallet/cellphone/iPod on your desk/table/window seat. Leaving my bag by itself was dumb. Don’t be dumb. I certainly won’t.
Stephanie’s LiveJournal Post

If you know anything about the incident or hear anything about it, please contact Stephanie at stephanie_appell@emerson.edu.