By DON STINE
A criminal complaint filed by the Asbury Park Public Library against two leaders of the Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection organization charging them with theft of library property is now on hold after boxes of materials were returned to the library last week.
Library Director Robert Stewart said that 19 boxes containing items from the Springsteen collection have been returned and the library, in a joint effort with the Friends, will now inventory it to see if it is all there.
“We need to sit down and check it item by item and this will probably not be done until after the first of the year,” he said.
The complaint, filed in police headquarters last week by the library’s Board of Trustees, charges Bob Crane and Dan Toskaner- both on the board of directors of the Friends- with the theft of a large number of items from the library’s Bruce Springsteen Special Collection.
According to the complaint on March 14, 2008 Crane and Toskaner 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.
Stewart said the complaint against Crane and Toskaner is now on hold and will be withdrawn after the library’s board of trustees meeting on Jan. 14 if everything has been returned and accounted for.
Crane said this week that the Springsteen documents were loaned to the library and there was a verbal agreement that someday the collection could be removed to a more suitable location.
Stewart, on the other hand, said the library owns all of the materials.
“The fact is the trustees would not have accepted a collection in terms of a loan. The collection was created here in 2001 and the Friends were not even formed until 2004 so how could they own the stuff. The library always assumed that everything donated is owned by the library,” he said.
Stewart said more than 50 people have donated to the collection and that the library has ownership. Crane also donated items to the collection for which he received a tax deduction.
“According to the board, what’s here we own and (the Friends) have no right to move it anywhere. The collection should stay together and, if moved, go to a suitable institution but that would probably only happen if the status or operations of library was in question,” he said.
Crane also said the Friends are concerned that the Springsteen collection is not being properly stored.
“With the documents back in the library our first priority will be to ensure their proper handling and storage,” he said.
Stewart said the collection is in a suitable location that has not changed since it was first donated.
“The location is no different than it was seven years ago. It is housed in acid-free storage boxes in a secure place with alarm systems. The Friends knew the storage conditions when they formed,” he said.
Stewart said he thinks Crane’s complaints about storage of the collection is being used as an excuse to try and get the collection back or take it somewhere else.
“The board said in every request for the return of the materials that, once returned, we need to discuss the future of the collection and the relationship between the library and the Friends,” he said.
Stewart also wants Crane to provide information about where the items removed were stored for the many months they were gone from the library.
“I would like that information. Was it stored in an attic or a basement?” he questioned.
Crane said that the materials were stored in a climate-controlled environment that met archival standards.
Stewart said Backstreets magazine and fans from around the world have donated many of the items in the library’s Springsteen collection.
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.
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