Updates and a Question
Thank you first of all to everyone in this community for all of your comments of support and generally extreme helpfulness on everything from replacing my computer to using my cell phone bill to maybe track down who did this to that tip about the Beacon's schedule. It sucks that there are people out there who do things like this, but there are also people out there like all of you, and that's pretty cool.

Next, a word of warning. It is looking increasingly like whoever did this was not a member of the Emerson community, by which I mean an "outside job," someone who knew what they were doing, knew to dress like a student, come into the library before six o'clock, and just wait for an opportunity to present itself. The objects taken vs. the objects left behind indicate that they were efficient and interested only in items of value. The fact that my wallet ended up in the garbage can on the corner of Boylston and Tremont is probably due to the fact that it only had $15 in it. There are other factors, too, but I'll leave it at that.

I cannot count the number of times people (mostly students) have said to me in the last few days, "That's so crazy! I always leave my stuff in the library!" One guy in a class of mine even pointed out that, given the limited seating in the library, you're almost forced to leave your belongings behind to claim your spot. Well, I can't say this any clearer: There are "professional" thieves in the Emerson Library. Yes, it's nice to know that the thief was probably not an Emerson student, but again, this means the alternative is that there are people in the Library who are there solely to wait for you to leave your computer/wallet/cellphone/iPod on your desk/table/window seat. Leaving my bag by itself was dumb. Don't be dumb. I certainly won't.

And finally, the bag that was stolen was a much-loved Banana Republic pseudo messenger bag that was probably about eight years old, and no, they don't sell them anymore, I checked. So, do you have a messenger bag? Do you love it? Where did you get it?

ETA: I created a Facebook note asking about library security at other libraries, but there's a tag limit, so if you wanna add anything, look me up, I'm Steph Appell. And I'm interested in how many people would actually support being required to have an Emerson ID to get into the library, so I created a Facebook group, here's a link to that as well.