Burglars forced their way into three departments in the Melville Library between Feb. 8 and Feb. 11, police said, damaging items at each office along the way.

Doug Little, Assistant Chief of the University Police Department, said that burglars broke into Cataloging, the Music Library and an office in Academic Affairs in the library that weekend, and made off with no more than $10 worth of items. However, the burglaries have not been linked.

For David Bolotine, head of Cataloging, it was the first time since the department’s inception that a burglary had taken place. “I’ve been here for [four to five] years and it is the first something like this has happened,” he said.

Bolotine said that when he arrived at the office, the first thing he noticed was that the main door’s cover plate had been bent out of shape. The lock was able to open, but could not re-lock, he said. He went on to say that he only contacted the police when he realized his office door that is always kept open was shut.

Co-workers in the department also informed him that many of the locked desk drawers had been pried open; however, none of the terminals with money were touched.

At the Music Library, the burglary was more forceful.

Celeste Hessler, a copy cataloger in the department, was the first to arrive on Feb. 11, and she said she had noticed that the supply closet had been left wide open. The burglar had also searched her desk and flung her granola bars around the office.

The matter was reported to police at 9:34 a.m., according to Little, and it was later discovered that the burglar had opened the microfilm machine in the department and stolen the money from it, which consequently destroyed the machine.

Hessler said that the machine might have had $5 in it at the time, since it was rarely used.

Because scratch marks were found at the bottom of the door, she said she believed the burglar used a screwdriver to pry open the door. A plate has since been put at the door to prevent that from happening again.

While neither Cataloging nor the Music Library had security systems in place, Academic Affairs, the third site of a burglary that weekend, did.

The offices were secured by alarm systems, but burglars were still able to enter and ransack the office of Gabrielle Tobin, administrative director of the Honors College.

She did not have much information to offer, but mentioned that the burglar only shoved the items on her desk onto the ground.

Little said that the ceiling tiles had also been removed, prompting suspicion that the burglars came in from the outside through the ceiling.

To date, police have been unable to find the culprits that broke into each department, and they ask anyone with information to call 632-TIPS to assist in the investigation.