The Book thief

Daniel Spiegelman helped himself to rare books, manuscripts, and letters from Columbia University's Butler Library. While not a sophisticated thief with academic knowledge in this area, he was clever in the methods he used. The thefts remained undetected for months by library staff because there was no trace of a break-in. Only when a librarian went to get a rare book that she was working on, and found it missing, did the thefts come to light. Spiegelman was caught in Europe as he was trying to sell some of the material.