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More than 9,000 books are missing from the British Library, including Renaissance treatises on theology and alchemy, a medieval text on astronomy, first editions of 19th- and 20th-century novels, and a luxury edition of Mein Kampf produced in 1939 to celebrate Hitler's 50th birthday.
The Guardian reports that the library believes the books have not been stolen but rather are mislaid among its 650km of shelves and 150m items. However, some of the books have not been seen in more than half a century.
Jennifer Perkins, the library's head of records, said that books and other items were usually identified as mislaid when a reader requested them - more than 3.5m items are delivered to the reading rooms every year - and the book was not on its correct shelf. Other losses were revealed in rolling audits of the enormous collection.
She said: "There are a number of reasons why collection items may not be at their correct shelf location: they may have been misplaced on the shelves, the shelf mark label may have become detached from the spine and the item is being checked and reshelved, or the catalogue record may not have been altered to reflect a changed shelf mark.
"The library takes the security of its collections very seriously and has a range of measures designed to protect collection items from inadvertent or deliberate harm."