Management of Library and Archival Security

Book excerpt: Providing a substantive approach to the issue, Management of Library and Archival Security: From the Outside Looking In gives librarians and collection directors practical and helpful suggestions for developing policies and procedures to minimize theft. In addition, this text prepares you to deal with the aftermath of a robbery or natural disaster that destroys priceless materials. Through expert opinions and advice, Management of Library and Archival Security will teach you how to protect and secure invaluable collections and the finances invested in them. In addition, Management of Library and Archival Security offers numerous suggestions for preserving collections from environmental hazards and natural disasters. Contributors discuss several possible scenarios leading to the loss or destruction of library or archive materials and offer numerous measures of protection, including: implementing timely inventory standards, using approved marketing practices, keeping good user records, and having knowledge of insurance coverage making a recovery plan that deals with the impact of a theft and how it may affect staff and the actual workings of a department or archive knowing who to contact after a theft, such as local enforcement agencies, federal officials, and listing the theft on the Library Security Officer Listserv (LSO) to alert local and national libraries and collectors to the crime incorporating internal audits in a university setting to prevent crime and ensure accounting and administration controls are effective and efficient instituting a preservation program for collections, which includes temperature control of the indoor environment, studying the building design for weaknesses or potential dangers, reformatting deteriorating materials, and limiting the handling of materials making plans for the aftermath of a disaster, such as creating methods for risk assessment, developing collection priorities, and making rehabilitation policies for materials The chapters in Management of Library and Archival Security offer unique insight from a former F.B.I. agent with extensive experience in library thefts, a preservation specialist, and an archivist with extensive conservation experience in order to provide you with all of the information you need to safeguard library and archive collections against theft, environmental conditions, natural disasters, and resultant financial loss.