From: marky@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Mark Anthony Young)
Subject: ANG - Library Theft
Organization: The AlterNet Guide to the Galaxy
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 04:05:14 GMT

%t Library Theft
%s It's terribly difficult and not very lucrative.  
%a Mark Anthony Young -- marky@caen.engin.umich.edu
%d 19911212
%x Theft
%x Library
%x Malik IX
%q However I haven't been able to track down Neil Gaimen's _Don't
%q Panic_...i went to my local library but i guess it was stolen a few
%q years ago and they haven't bothered to replace it.
%r Mindy McKaig -- mmckaig@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
%e
Now why would anyone want to steal a library?  It's not a particularly 
useful piece of architecture, if you're not inclined to reading (as all of 
the more notorious criminals are not).  It won't do as a discotheque 
because the rather severe looking old ladies who inhabit it would be 
constantly shushing the band.  You can't turn it into an Italian restaurant 
because of the strict "No Food" rules.  (Were you to violate this rule the 
little old ladies would not stop at mere shushing.  They would quickly 
escalate to tut-tutting and shortly thereafter to violent huffing.  Before 
long the place would sound like an asthmatic in an echo chamber and that 
would put you right off your lunch.)

Not only is the building useless, but it would be difficult to abscond 
with.  They are usually rather large and so cannot be slipped into the 
inner coat pocket, nor even the outer coat pockets of the Titans (had the 
Titans even worn coats, which is doubtful since they lived back in the days 
when people were proud to stand out in the cold and say "It doesn't bother 
me one bit that the icy wind is cutting through my thin garments and 
chilling me to the bone, nor that the freezing rain is covering my body and 
forming icicles on my chin and nose (and other parts of me that shall 
remain nameless), for I am a Titan, and we laugh at discomfort and thrill 
to pain and generally live short and squalid lives.")  Libraries are also 
usually made of stone (pre-victorian buildings that no one could think of 
anything useful to do with), or of brick (a material that wins big in the 
upkeep department but generally inspires onlookers to say "Yech.  What a 
horribly ugly building.  Shouldn't something be done to spruce it up, like 
maybe covering it with a landfill site or aluminum siding?").  These 
materials are very heavy and thus should only be placed in specially 
re-inforced containers such as dry-docks or fruit-cake tins.

It is for these reasons that there has only ever been one library theft 
ring in the history of the galaxy.  Ooblig Rastablaghan (of the Oogarieth V 
Rastablaghans) masterminded the theft of seven hundred libraries from the 
planet Malik IX.  The crime was particularly pointless, because the people 
of Malik IX do not have any language, and thus no books (thus any vacant 
building on Malik IX is automatically designated a library (the Malixians, 
while not having language, do have a highly developed system of 
mathematics, and take the concept of "vacuously true" very seriously)).  
The theft was only discovered when the buildings were required to meet the 
increasing demand for shoe stores.  The perpetrator was arrested, but Malik 
IX passed the shoe event horizon before he could be tried.  Ooblig is still 
in custody on the prison planet Malik VIII.  His lawyers have prepared a 
writ of habeas corpus, but it cannot be filed until a new civilization 
arises on Malik IX to deal with it.

When asked why he had done it, Ooblig replied:  "Yeah, well, you know."  
The questioner was immediately arrested as an accomplice and shares 
Ooblig's cell on Malik VIII.  
%e
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