So the thieves who abscounded with the Shakespeare folio, "regarded by academics as the most important book in the English language", did so at a time when no one else was around the crown jewels of English Lit. Am I the only one who sees a problem here.
What a crock of S**T! Excuse my language. Yes, sprinkler systems can
be a bad idea if an idiot buys junk, and a fellow idiot put them in,
fails to maintain them, fails to inspect them, chains the valve open,
etc. etc. etc. Who do you suppose reads this newsgroup? Idiots?
We've been fighting this urban myth about sprinklers malfunctioning
in a museum for decades and we don't need your commercial scare
tactics. Properly installed and properly maintained sprinkler systems
are acceptable in museums. Storing their collections off site in your
vaults probably isn't.
There have been very few instances of sprinklers malfunctioning in
museums and three of the four I know of (and I did an extensive
research) involved gross human error. The fourth should not have
happened. I'm certain that in LA your earthquake risk increases the
chances of an accidental discharge but this is not the case in the
real world (oops, I mean to say, rest of the world).
The next time I build a museum, I'll tell the architect to use
non-combustible materials and build it out of concrete totally. No
room will be larger than 6000 square feet. I'm sure that will go over
well. So I guess we are going to be stuck with sprinklers and those
old pain-in-the-neck fire codes you were able to bypass.
So. Are we supposed to store everything off site in your facility?
Does the statistically minimal risk of water discharge in our
sprinklered museum justify putting our collections in your hands?
Doesn't the risk of transporting the collection materials back and
forth between our sprinklered museum and your vault building increase
the risk to the collection to a degree much greater than simply
storing them in our own vaults? Doesn't this substantially increase
the risk of vehicle accident, vibration and thus conservation
concerns, theft, mishandling accidents, etc. during transit, to the
point where the collection is in greater jeopardy from being stored
off site than it would be if stored in a sprinklered museum? By the
way, few, if any, collection storage rooms in museums are ever
sprinklered. We know about alternative suppression and fire separation
methods, too.
When our collections are stored in our own buildings WE protect them.
We know our guards and can control their hiring, training, performance
and supervision. When our collections are in your custody who knows
how secure they are? Other customers can approach our collections to
within a few feet of our precious works of art since they can gain
access to their vault and be separated from our collection by only a
guard and a concrete wall. Bang. He's dead. By the way. There are
few burglar alarm systems I can't defeat. You can't afford one that I
can't defeat one way or the other.
Until you prove to me that your "high security" vault is really
secure, consider me a skeptic. I've surveyed too many "high security"
vaults for my clients only to find that I could defeat their security
in an instant.
The people on this newsgroup didn't just fall off a cabbage cart.
Don't treat them like they did. Many museums resort to off site
storage. I hope they survey the facility thoroughly and don't believe
the salesman's claims. They provide a service in certain instances
but are not a permanent solution to museum collection storage
problems.
Steve Keller, CPP
Museum Security Consultant
I would like to comment on the above letter. I don't know anything
about this case and am speaking in general terms. I, too, have a
little experience in the museum security field and think a more
balanced perspective is appropriate. Sorry to take so long replying
but I've been "on the road" and haven't had time. Museum security
people generally do their jobs and generally notice thefts promptly.
Museum managers (directors) do care. But they often have pressures on
them that interfere with their ability to decide to call in police
immediately. I am not defending them, I am just explaining them. My
point is that it is not fair to characterize museums as uncaring or
security people as incompetent. Museums have finite collections. Sure,
the collections grow annually but often by only a piece or two in some
locations per year. Museums exist as effective educational
institutions by their ability to borrow new works of art and stage
fresh shows. If you have a theft, it is always a concern that
reporting the theft to the police will cause more trouble than the
museum wants. On one hand is the desire to recover the item. By not
reporting the theft, you may reduce the chance of recovery, but not
necessarily so. But you WILL complicate your ability to borrow objects
(and thus stage more exhibitions) and you will greatly impact any
shows in planning where contracts haven't been signed. Lenders may
back out or demand very expensive security improvements before
proceeding with the loan. More importantly, rich people don't die and
leave their works of art to a museum that can't hang on to them. So
even if the object is recovered, the loss of donations and assets left
to the museum in wills could be in the millions of dollars. I've seen
it happen. One theft ended with a full recovery but is said to have
cost my client over a million dollars. So it is imperative, museums
feel, to make certain that the work of art that is missing is actually
stolen and hasn't been taken to conservation or photography or where
ever. Compounding this is the fact that museums are living changing
and complex educational institutions. Works of art come and go off
the walls all the time for study, repair, documentation for
inventories, photography for educational CD ROMS and catalogs, loans
to other institutions, etc. Something is taken down daily in a major
museum. In my 20 years in this business I know of literally hundreds
of incidents where art was discovered missing only to turn up
somewhere in the building within a day. I know of several incidents
where it was found, after being reported to the police. Oddly, instead
of being commended for reporting the mix-up and erring on the side of
good security and quick law enforcement involvement, the press
literally crucified the security director or the museum for not
knowing where its art was, or being inept, etc. You can't win. You
are damned if you do and damned if you don't. I think it is safe to
assume that something like this will happen to any reasonably sized
institution sometime in its life. So the person in charge of security
should insist on certain safeguards. First, no one should move art
without FIRST telling security. TELLING security must be done using a
multiple part art removal notice, a copy of which is given personally
to the security control room BEFORE the move occurs, and a copy is
sent thru channels to the security director for processing. The
removal notice should be secure from counterfeiting within reason (the
subject of another email some other time) and must state who moved the
art, when and where it was taken, etc. Guards should do a daily
inventory of art on display and any missing art should have a removal
notice. Missing art should be reported immediately and hopefully the
security control room will be able to put their hands on the art
removal notice form just delivered to them indicating routine removal
of art. Failure to follow this procedure should result in immediate
and drastic action. When I was Director of Security in Chicago, if we
found a removal notice had not been posted and art was apparently
missing, we called the curator and director at home if the problem was
discovered on the 2 am patrol, and they came in to investigate. It
only happened once, I can assure you. It is necessary for the security
department to have both the training and a formal procedure for
following up. For example, if we discovered a missing object at noon,
we knew who to call and how to find out what the work of art looks
like so we could immediately search, even of professional staff was
unavailable. We ordered guards to go to a higher alert level and
implement a more careful search of outgoing parcels just in case the
art was still in the building and was yet to be removed by the thief.
Even then, we delayed calling police until the usual locations where
the art is often taken, such as Conservation, were checked and the
usual people (art handlers, Registrar, Conservator, Curator) were
contacted and questioned. I agree that museums don't pay enough and
don't invest enough in guard training. They teach CPR even though no
one ever died in the museum and paramedic service is readily
available. They do this because CPR can be given without any time
investment on the part of the security management and it looks like
they are doing something. But they fail to provide training on the
important matters like responding immediately to a missing, but not
confirmed stolen, work of art, because this takes time and effort on
their part and money for complex training. And the guards have to be
smart enough (i.e., be well paid and therefore receptive to training)
for the training to be effective if it is given. Much more can be
done. Museum Directors make bad decisions and sometimes decide not to
call police and report a theft to avoid bad publicity and to keep from
losing funding and donations. And they fail to report thefts to
protect the museum's image, since the image of bad security is often
worse than actually having bad security. But these are management
decisions that a museum Director is empowered to make. Most of the
time, a small theft is not covered by insurance anyway, since
deductibles are often over $100,000 per theft. Museums do often hire
private investigators to pursue the object when a theft is not
formally reported. Let me tell you one story about reporting a theft
to the police. I am a former cop so I'm not picking on you. I got my
*** kicked on the street enough that I earned the right to criticize
police. We reported one major theft to the police only to find that
the confidential information given to them to help weed out false
extortion calls was leaked to the newspaper. This happens all the
time. So reporting the incident can have complications. And time and
again, I find that even when the theft is reported to police, no
follow- through occurs for many hours or even days. Local police often
don't have a clue about how to investigate an art crime, let alone who
to report it to. In many cases I have been involved with, my main
contribution is to tell them who they have to notify and pressure them
to make the notifications before the art is long gone. My point is
not to argue that police shouldn't be called but to say that even if
they are called immediately upon discovery of the possible theft, they
very often don't distribute the information in a manner that makes the
premature notification of police relevant to a recovery. A couple of
hours to search the building is prudent. A couple of days is not,
unless the Director has made an informed decision not to report. So .
. .Where do I stand on this issue? By all means, report thefts to the
police. But have your act together BEFORE the theft. And call in
someone like Bob Spiel who specializes in art thefts and recoveries as
soon as possible after discovery so local police can be properly
advised on what to do to maximize recovery. If you are a client of
mine and call me I will help initially, but will call in Bob who has
both formal and informal avenues he can pursue toward recovery, many
of which are not even known to local police. Please don't be so
cynical about how museums don't care. There are things that you don't
know about, never having worked in a major museum before and never
having been through these things before yourself. Museum Directors may
make bad decisions but they are empowered to do so. That is their
prerogative. But they DO care very much. And the decision to call
police is almost NEVER the prerogative of the Director of Security. On
the issue of inventories, this is a complex matter. Most museums have
an inventory card in a central file on every object which describes
the object and provides basic information about it. What they don't
have is the ability to print out the list in sortable format since
most museums do not have their inventory on computer. This is due to
the fact that you can't get a group of curators to agree what some
pieces are, let along how to describe them, particularly in non-art
museums, but even to a degree in art museums. And, believe it or not,
affordable computers have only been around for a few years that could
handle such a project properly and this is a massive and time
consuming job in even a small museum so some who have started such a
computer project haven't finished in all these years. But museums
almost always know what they are SUPPOSED to have. What they don't
have is an annual count of what is actually in storage. This is due in
part to the fact that museums are short handed. You don't just put
volunteers or Arthur Anderson CPA's in the collection storage room and
expect them to pick up a vase and say, "Hummm, Ming Dynasty, good
specimen," and then describe it for the inventory. Auditors may know
sweaters at Macy's but if someone said "Monet" they would think it
meant "Money" with a French accent. The Curator or Registrar must do
this annual inventory personally. He or she are the people trained to
do so and they are spread pretty thin. So it is a practical matter,
not a lack of caring or incompetence. On the issue of security tags on
the works of art, by all means we HAVE thought of this. I first
approached an electronic article surveillance (inventory tag) company
at least fifteen years ago when most people didn't even know the
technology existed. There are many valid conservation issues that
prevent tags from being used. Technology is changing and as tags
become smaller, this may change. But for now, EAS tags, trace
elements, micro dots, and other technologies are not quite there yet.
You don't just put a needle through a canvass to hold on an EAS tag or
glue it to the picture, even the back of a picture. I am currently
trying to specify a system where transmitters are placed on every work
of art and receivers are located every 40 feet in a new museum. When
the art moves, the art is seen on a screen as it moves through the
building. It is even three dimensional indicating if it moves
downstairs or upstairs rather than laterally. But even this technology
is not quite there yet and is facing reviews by conservators and
others. Try telling a Conservator you want to super glue an EAS tag to
a picture. Tell him you want to put it on a frame and he will tell you
that it will encourage someone to cut the picture out of a frame. We
aren't as dumb as you may think. Some of us have been working on this
technology since you were writing traffic tickets. It's not as easy as
it looks. I have personally advised two EAS companies and five radio
transmitter companies on how to overcome problems over a period of 20
years. When a work of art disappears from a museum, we all feel it.
Trust me. We care.
Steve Keller
Museum Security Consultant
22 Foxfords Chase
Ormond Beach, FL 3174
(904) 673-9973
As a security consultant and former security director I am an "advocate for honesty". It is my role to defend Tim's actions and give him support although I recognize that everyone involved is innocent until proven guilty. An auditors report and newspaper article are not proof of guilt. I know exactly how he must feel since I have, in the past several years, lost three real lucrative consulting contracts because I refused to change the wording in my reports to cover (serious) improprieties, some involving covered-up internal art crimes and others involving financial waste, bidding collusion, and other crimes. To me it is a bit ironic that each of my lost contracts involved government institutions and this incident involves a state institution. It makes me wonder where we are heading. I would estimate that my lost business as a result of my lost contracts was in the neighborhood of $150,000 to $200,000 since all of the institutions I was serving would have had considerable future work for me. Tim, sometimes you just have to take the hit if you think you are right. That's why you have "the big office".
In defense of the museum (and I say that somewhat tongue in cheek) "everybody does it" (if, in fact, the allegations are true). Maybe not as much or as often or as blatantly but everybody does it. If we all went to jail for frequent flier miles, I'd be doing a life term. I'm a two million miler! Maybe that's even two life terms!
When I uncovered ethics problems with my clients which led to me resign the
projects, I noticed a pattern. In every case, finding a way around the system
was institutionalized because the system didn't work. Most of the
improprieties I have found in government agencies--and I've been a consultant
12 years and worked for the government for ten in the past--resulted from a
practical need to work around the system to get anything done. This results in
disrespect for the system and further deterioration of controls until things
get out of hand.
I'm not being very articulate or detailed and I'm prevented by my ethics from
discussing details of my three previous experiences with you. If I could give
you examples you might better understand what I am trying to say.
I think that attitudes on this issue, that is, whether or not you support Tim
for his actions, will depend upon your perspective. We in security know he did
the right thing even if the allegations against the museum are proven false
since he has an obligation to report his suspicions based on probably cause. I
don't know all the details but based on what I have heard, he did nothing
wrong per se. But I'm sure that some managers outside of the security arena
might think that Tim crossed the bounds of his job. This attitude certainly
would be that of my former clients who feel that it is necessary to break the
rules in order to get anything done. And it the case of my clients, that was
certainly the case. The system had indeed failed them and they did what they
had to do to do their jobs. Unfortunately, without any controls, they went way
out in left field and their actions became totally unacceptable. Maybe that's
what happened in this case. Maybe not.
I'd like to hear the Director's side of this issue. Not that I will likely
change my mind about a security director's right to report suspicions, but
because it would be interesting to hear. I'm sure that she had a reason for
everything she did and it may even be a valid reason. Not that this makes it
right. But I have found that you don't have to be a crook to be caught up in
something like this. And there is a lesson for all of us in this.
When I found someone breaking the rules to the extent that I had to tell them
they were way off base, they usually replied that they had to work this way to
get things done and it was clear that there was a degree of truth to the
excuse. My point here is that good people do stupid things sometimes and lose
sight of the big picture. Museum administrators are no different.
Companies and institutions employ auditors and accountants and registrars and
security managers (we are all in the same role, we just work with different
areas of the asset spectrum) for a reason. More than once in my career I felt
very unpopular or unappreciated in being the bad guy by making someone obey
the rules or follow procedures. That goes with the territory. Many times I
was asked why I would, for example, make a guard show his outgoing parcel to
another guard when going off duty. (Don't you trust us?). Or why a member of
the Board of Trustees had to wear an ID card or submit to a parcel inspection.
Or why property passes or visitor sign in sheets had to be letter perfect. My
feeling is that if we don't have rules and then enforce them uniformely and
aggressively, then the system will break down. When it breaks down, bad
procedures become institutionalized and everyone begins to make their own
rules.
I'm saddened by the fact that this museum has had to suffer embarrassment of
this type and I'm sad for the personal embarrassment this must be causing the
director and staff. I sense that this is another case of good people doing
dumb things if the facts as reported by the auditors are true. And, I might
add, news reports and auditor reports don't make someone guilty of a crime.
These facts all have to be explored.
I'm leaving my office today to fly--at my own expense--halfway across the U.S.
to attend a bidders meeting on a project being bid by a government agency. It
will cost me over $1,000 to attend this meeting because the agency seeking a
consultant didn't have the sense or courtesy to advertise this a month in
advance so I could buy low cost airfares. Why should they care? They aren't
paying? Or are they? Someone will get this work and you can bet that the pre-
bid costs will be absorbed in the fees charged. I'm attending this meeting
even though I know a great deal about the job site and project and could bid
without attending. But rules are rules, and rules say every bidder must
attend. I also know that this job I am bidding is a survey project to be
conducted in a format specified by the government procurement officer who
knows little about security, not by the consultant, and I know that I could
actually do the survey, justify the appropriation, design a security system,
and produce bid documents for less money than I will have to change to do the
preliminary survey alone since I must follow the government procurement rules.
Is there any wonder that so many agencies circumvent the rules trying to work
with their limited resources?
The system needs to be re-thought. But until it is, we in security have an
obligation to do what we are paid to do and that may be unpopular.
I offer my support to all parties involved--Tim and the museum director who
may have just been doing her job in a system that encourages us to break the
rules-- and have faith that our system will work. I hold my breath. I'm never
sure that it will. But it usually does. Tim, hang in there. Remember that all
parties are innocent until proven guilty.
One final word. I have known of two other instances where the Director of
Security in a museum undertook an investigation of the museum director for
suspected criminal activity. In one case the Director of Security called the
museum's attorney, thinking he was the person to go to for support and advice.
The attorney called the museum Director and the Security Director was promptly
fired. In another, the Director of Security suspected kickbacks on a major
construction project and began his own investigation. There was evidence to
support the suspicions. The Security Director's investigation was discovered
and he got the axe.
If you go there, you will probably have to go there alone. And you'll have to
be damn good. If you win, you'll get a pat on the back followed by a
suggestion that you move on to another job since your future has been tainted.
That's just the way it is in "the big office". Sometimes it pays to discuss
your suspicions with the superior under suspicion. You can do great damage if
you are wrong and every professional deserves an opportunity to respond openly
to your suspicions and accusations. And sometimes, things are not always
clear. There are, unfortunately, gray areas. Above all, keep personal feelings
out of your investigation. If you are having conflicts with your superior
under investigation, it is best to turn your concerns over to someone else
higher up in the hierarchy and let them handle it. No matter how right you may
be, you will lose if it looks like you are out to get someone for personal
reasons or that your investigation is based on a vendetta. The rights of
someone under suspicion are always to be protected.
Steve Keller
Museum Security Consultant
22 Foxfords Chase
Ormond Beach, FL 32174
IntlArtCop@aol.com
Nothing in this letter should imply that I feel anyone is guilty of any crime
or improprietary in this incident. That is for others to decide.
I definately do not think that a discussion of this issue on this mailing list
is a waste of time. I have posted this letter as a way of indicating that it
is a much greater problem that many may think.