Word: maceda
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...beat that should be relatively serene, even awe inspiring. But for the past four years, when she patrolled the 530 miles of book-lined corridors at the Library of Congress in Washington, library police detective Deborah Maceda grew increasingly disturbed by the evidence of crime run amuck. She found razor blades--perhaps for slicing pages out of books--in books and under shelves. During one eight-day period alone, she says, she discovered 33 mutilated books, including a rare 18th century anatomy folio. Other volumes had simply vanished...
...spring of 1992, Maceda began reporting the loss and damage. She peppered her superiors with memos, suggested ways to improve security and raised concerns about the way the library police were handling crime scenes. Instructed to desist, she wrote more memos. She also sought help up the line, writing a letter to Senator Connie Mack, chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that oversees the library. Acknowledges Maceda, who has worked for the library's Protective Services Office for six years and has been in law enforcement since 1979: "I made a pain in the ass of myself...
Thomas M. Jones, the head of Protective Services, signed off on disciplinary proceedings against Maceda, and she was moved to a nonpolice job in the law library. But in the end, her persistence was rewarded. Although she was unaware of it, an agreement to call in the U.S. Attorney's office and the FBI had been violated. In August, after Librarian of Congress James J. Billington received a harsh letter from Mack, he initiated an in-house investigation, acknowledging that there may have been security lapses at the country's largest and most valuable collection of books and documents...
...remains unclear why Maceda's reports did not trigger such notification, though some employees suggest that, after the problems in 1992, further security breaches might have been considered too embarrassing for the library. Billington still says he is not convinced the damage is as extensive as some believe. Then, too, some managers continue to insist that Maceda has blown the matter out of proportion, that she has a history of problems on the job, and a few have told her that they suspect she may have been involved in some of the book mutilations. Maceda is unfazed by these accusations...
...thought small classes were a good thing," said Kate C. Maceda, a parent of two kindergarteners...