The Daily Yomiuri – Osaka,Japan – reports Libraries in Kanagawa Prefecture are trying to deal with the problem of having large numbers of their books and other materials stolen, defaced or deliberately damaged by inconsiderate readers.
In Yokohama, 24,147 books were stolen from 18 municipal libraries in fiscal 2005, accounting for nearly 1 percent of the 3.59 million books owned by the libraries.
According to the Yokohama municipal government, the damage in terms of the books’ purchase prices amounted to 28.71 million yen. A similar number of books have gone missing annually over the past several years, city officials said.
Exchange Rate
28,000,000.00 Japan Yen = 249,108.27 United States Dollars