284,000 library books missing from libraries in Japan in 2007.

This is just bizarre.

What's the point?  In most cases of huge piles of books disappearing that I've read about, the thieves at least try to sell the books.  Maybe these guys DO try selling them, and when the stores won't take 'em, the thieves just throw them away?  (Or enraged at their own idiocy, burn them?)