By DON STINE
A complaint has been filed by the Asbury Park Public Library against two leaders of the Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection organization charging theft of library property.
The complaint, filed in police headquarters on Tuesday by Library Director Robert Stewart on behalf of the library’s Board of Trustees, charges Bob Crane, a member of the Board of Directors of the Friends, with the theft of a large number of items from the library’s Bruce Springsteen Special Collection.
Crane is also a co-founder of the Save Tillie organization.
“The board requests (the police) take appropriate action to bring the perpetrators to justice and help recover the property stolen from the library,” the complaint said.
According to the complaint, on March 14, 2008 Crane and another member of the board picked up 1,334 items from a microfilming project of some Springsteen materials in Bethlehem, Pa. The library had lent the men the items to have them preserved on microfilm but the items were never returned to the library after they were filmed and retrieved in Pennsylvania.
Stewart said six letters were sent to Crane between March 30 and Oct. 24 this year requesting return of the materials and advising the two men that they were unlawfully holding and controlling library property.
In May this year 208 items were returned to the library but that still leaves 1,126 items unaccounted for, Stewart said.
“They continue to unlawfully hold that quantity of library materials as of this date,” he said.
Stewart said the value of the items may vary but the library estimates the total value of the missing items at about $29,520.
Crane said when contacted by telephone Wednesday that he will not comment on the charges right now since he has just heard about them.
“I know absolutely nothing about what these charges entail and I need to have a lawyer look at the complaint and see what’s going on. Until that happens there is nothing I can say,” he said.
Stewart said Backstreets magazine and fans from around the world have donated many of the items in the library’s Springsteen collection but that Crane also donated items and received a substantial tax credit for them.
The Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection was formed in 2004 as a nonprofit organization to support and promote the collection which contains thousands of items.
The collection, believed to be the largest of its type in the world, contains materials dating from 1964 to the present on Springsteen, including books, song books, tour books, magazines, fanzines, academic journals and papers, comic books and newspaper articles.
The collection also contains Springsteen-related items from 42 different countries.
“Crane is on the board of directors of the Friends and it was in that status that he gained access to the library property,” Stewart said.
Crane is also the co-founder of Save Tillie. The group was formed in 1998 to save the Palace Amusements’ iconic Tillie image on the building’s exterior wall. Springsteen has used Tillie and Palace images as promotion in the past.
The group was expanded in 1999 in an attempt to save the entire building but it was demolished in 2004 as part of the city’s waterfront redevelopment project.
Both the Tillie and Bumper Car images from the Palace wall were removed prior to the demolition and are now being stored in Asbury Park.
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