Fraud requires three conditions: financial need, rationalisation, and opportunity. Lax or nonexistent financial management, along with an "it can't happen here" attitude, create the quintessential circumstances for fraud to happen in many libraries.
This hands-on guide discusses the unique vulnerabilities of libraries, especially as their assets grow. From daily book fines to budgets in six or seven figures, library assets offer ample temptations to the attentive thief, who is often someone in a position of trust. Proactively putting financial controls in place can remove the opportunity for fraud.
Snyder, a long time fraud detection expert, outlines solutions covering technical aspects of detecting and preventing fraud in libraries, while pointing out ways of modifying entrenched behaviours to reduce the chances of theft.
Outlining specific types of fraud, with tips to combat each, the book also addresses why libraries are particularly susceptible to fraud, and what other libraries have done to detect and prevent fraud.
Library directors, business managers, board members, and trustees will find here no-nonsense answers to protecting their library's assets.

Embezzling from a library? Doesn’t that show a lack of ambition?
- Early reviewer of author’s research –

I can’t believe you’d accuse librarians of stealing!
- Excerpt from a letter received by the author in response to a journal column