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Automatic Sprinklers Date

sent: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 12:40:19 -0500
This is in response to comments published by Robin Rogers and others regarding automatic sprinkler protection.
Point: Salt water corrosion- One finds it difficult to believe that art work and artifacts would be stored or displayed in an area where salt water corrosion is a problem. Any competent curator would ensure a minimum level of environmental controls that would prevent exposure to salt water. (If the salt water is corroding solder links and piping, what is it doing to the artifacts?)
Point: "(Sprinklers) go off for all kinds of reasons. We have seen a security guard changing clothes and hung (sic) his coat on a sprinkler head"- If the guard is so stupid as to hang his/her coat on a sprinkler head, he/she might also hang it over the lens of a security camera. We hope he/she is not carrying a loaded weapon. You need to hire smarter guards.
Point: Inspections- NFPA-25, Standard for the Inspection, Testing, and Maintenance of Water-Based Fire Protection Systems requires that "Sprinklers shall be inspected from the floor level annually. Sprinklers shall be free of corrosion, foreign materials, paint, and physical damage and shall be installed in the proper orientation (e.g., upright, pendant, or sidewall). Any sprinkler shall be replaced that is painted, corroded, damaged, loaded, or in the improper orientation." If your sprinkler system is not being inspected properly, the correct approach would be to contact a competent sprinkler contractor who is conversant with the applicable codes and standards.
Point: "The Fire Department actually has to call plumbers to disconnect the system because no one knows where the shut off values (sic) are or how to operate them"- This suggests that the fire department may not be doing their job. But it also suggests that someone at the facility being protected is not doing their job. Personnel from the local fire stations should be invited to tour the facility to familiarize themselves with its features. (Notice I said "fire stations," not fire marshal. When the fire strikes at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, the fire marshal will be home in bed.) Facility managers should know where all utility cutoffs (gas, electric, water) are located. In addition, the guards, the fire department, and everyone on the emergency notification list should have this information. Where the sprinkler valves and other utility cutoffs are not located where they can be identified easily, signs should be posted leading to the room or area where the cutoffs can be found. Within the area, each important cutoff valve or switch should be labeled. In an emergency, the fire department will not have the luxury of time needed to figure out which valve controls which utility in which area.
Point: "Education is the key . . ."- Of course education is the key. The recent exchange regarding sprinklers reveals an astounding amount of misinformation. It is no wonder that museum staffs are reluctant to install automatic sprinklers when so much nonsense is being published. It is no surprise that museum staffs, whose expertise is in other areas, are confused by conflicting statements, wild rumors, gross exaggerations, and allegations that are (to the experienced person) clearly misstatements of fact.
Lastly, automatic sprinklers are not a panacea and I do not want to be an advocate for sprinkler systems. My interest is in identifying the fire risks and recommending appropriate corrective actions. Certainly there are situations and circumstances where sprinklers are not the best fire protection system. Additionally, the fire risk is not limited to extinguishing systems only; fire prevention, salvage, and emergency planning are equally important. My general recommendations are (1) have a fire risk survey done by an independent agent who is not affiliated with anyone who sells, designs, or installs fire protection systems; (2) examine credentials to be sure that the surveyor knows what he/she is doing; and (3) before accepting recommendations, make sure you understand completely what the surveyor recommends and why it is being recommended.
Museums must be protected to ensure that future generations can enjoy what we enjoy today. Fire is an ever-present risk that must be dealt with on a professional level. To risk the loss of our heritage through ignorance and misinformation borders on criminality.
William A. Heidecker, Severn Risk Management, Inc., 645 Oakland Hills Drive, Apt. A-3, Arnold, Maryland 21012, Telephone 410-974-4082, E-mail: heideckerwa@worldnet.att.net

Hunt Launched For Looted Nazi Art Treasures

10:06 a.m. Nov 17, 1998 Eastern
By Paul Majendie
LONDON (Reuters) - Holocaust researchers Tuesday launched a multi-billion dollar treasure hunt for art treasures looted by the Nazis in World War Two. Lord Greville Janner of the Holocaust Educational Trust said SS leader Heinrich Himmler's family may have been able to keep his looted treasures while Jews were still battling after 50 years to win back priceless heirlooms. ``The art which he stole may have been returned to his heirs but the trail went dead on us,'' Janner told reporters. ``The hunt for Nazi loot has turned into the greatest treasure hunt in history. We don't know where it will end,'' he added. Janner, issuing a research document on looted Nazi art that may have ended up in Britain, said he had won the agreement of both state and private museums to make detailed checks on the provenance of paintings. ``We regard them as thoroughly honorable people running wholly honorable institutions and I am sure they would not wish to be in possession of stolen property,'' he said. ``You cannot DNA a work of art but the provenance of most of them today can be established,'' he said. The Trust is also seeking to audit the British armed forces art collection to check if it contains any works of art that may have been ``liberated'' by Allied troops. It also wants to look at British intelligence files to find out where the trail ended after the war. ``We believe there are documents which show the heads of the British restitution team told the Soviet Union where to find important Nazi hordes of loot in Berlin which then disappeared in Russia,'' Janner said. Earlier this year, Swiss banks agreed a global settlement which will give Holocaust victims and their heirs a total of $1.25 billion. Janner said he would pursue every avenue from stocks and shares to unpaid life insurance claims and looted art. Finding the paintings was the first step before other immensely complicated issues, such as the impact on the art market, can be dealt with. Janner conceded he had no idea yet how great was the scale of the Nazi art plunder and how much still remained to be traced. He declined to point the finger of suspicion at any paintings he thought might be Nazi loot. The Holocaust Educational Trust's research concentrated on British archives that have just been revealed after 50 years of state-imposed secrecy. He wants the hunt to become international. ``There are others. The Vatican, for example, has vast wonderful art galleries and so far we have not succeeded in encouraging them sufficiently to look at the provenance of items. But we are always hopeful.''
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.

Sensormatic Urges Heart Patients and Doctors to Read New Advisory on Anti-Theft Systems

03:19 p.m Nov 17, 1998 Eastern BOCA RATON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 17, 1998--
-- American Heart Association Endorses FDA Suggestion, Says Patients `Should Not be Unduly Concerned' -- Hailing the American Heart Association's (AHA) declaration this week that "individuals should not be unduly concerned" about interactions between anti-theft systems and implanted medical devices such as pacemakers and defibrillators, Sensormatic Electronics Corp. (NYSE:SRM) urged both heart patients and clinicians to visit the AHA's Website (www.americanheart.org) and read the full text of the organization's statement on the issue. The AHA today posted a Science Advisory on its Website aimed at avoiding public concern in light of what it called "questions (that) have been raised about whether patients with implanted medical devices such as pacemakers and defibrillators need to worry about electronic anti-theft systems." As part of its advisory, the AHA noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to physicians just this past September in which it "concluded that (anti-theft) interactions are unlikely to cause clinically significant symptoms in most patients." Like the FDA, the heart association reiterated in its advisory that "surveillance systems interfered with the routine function of the implanted devices" only in "rare cases" and that "no serious injury or deaths have occurred." Sensormatic noted that the AHA concluded its advisory by endorsing "the recommendations to patients issued by the FDA." The FDA recommended that physicians advise patients with electronic medical implants simply to avoid lingering near or leaning directly on anti-theft equipment. This is, in fact, precisely the same advice implant manufacturers and the anti-theft industry have been offering for years. Sensormatic Electronics Corporation is the leading supplier of electronic security systems to the retail, commercial, and industrial marketplaces. Sensormatic is also the leader in source tagging, a process in which consumer-goods manufacturers insert anti-theft tags into products during manufacturing. For more information on Sensormatic, visit its home page on the World Wide Web at http://www.sensormatic.com
Copyright 1998, Business Wire

Paris denies blame in looting Jewish property

12:18 p.m. Nov 17, 1998 Eastern
By Lee Yanowitch
PARIS, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Seeking to put an end to a two-year uproar, the city of Paris on Tuesday declared itself blameless in the widespread seizure of Jewish property during the World War Two Nazi occupation. Paris Mayor Jean Tiberi, breathing a sigh of relief, told a news conference that the French capital owned no real estate seized from Jews under the collaborationist Vichy regime's programme to rid French society of Jewish influence. ``Indeed, it appears that the city does not own any property confiscated from owners considered 'Jewish' by Vichy's legislation,'' Tiberi said. He spoke as an expert commission issued its report on a year and a half of research into the archives of state agencies and the war-time General Commission for Jewish Questions. The Paris city council ordered the report in 1996 after the book ``Private Estate'' by journalist Brigitte Vital-Durand accused the city of seizing many buildings in the capital's Marais district, a neighbourhood once heavily populated by Jews killed in concentration camps. Commission president Noel Chahid-Noura told reporters that the city of Paris had taken over real estate in the Marais district during the Occupation solely for an urban renewal project. Virtually all the owners had been compensated, he said. Though the city ``paid all that was due,'' the commission is uncertain whether the money ended up in the owners' hands. In some cases the funds were deposited in accounts in their names, but the state institution in possession of those accounts since the end of the war is still investigating its archives and will need two years to reach a conclusion, he said. In other cases, owners or their heirs never claimed the money and it was turned over to the Treasury after 30 years. The city said the neighbourhood in question, dubbed parcel 16 by the city administration, was made up of centuries-old buildings infested with dirt and disease at the time of the war. The report said most local residents were poor immigrants from Eastern Europe who rented rather than owned their flats. Of 3,694 buildings acquired throughout Paris by the city during the Occupation, the report identified 49 owners as Jews. ``The city of Paris does not appear to have had a discriminatory policy of an anti-semitic nature,'' Noura said. ``There were only a few isolated cases that could be considered as possible examples of uncompensated seizures.'' Among the properties owned by Jews, two were seized outright while compensation for five others was well below market value. The population of the Marais slumped to 5,000 from 25,000 during World War Two as Jews fled persecution or were deported. In all, 76,000 Jews -- a quarter of France's Jews -- were deported to Nazi death camps during World War Two. Noura said the commission will continue an investigation into whether Jews evicted from their flats were compensated. A separate commission was formed by former Prime Minister Alain Juppe in 1996 to investigate whether banks, insurance companies and other state agencies were still holding Jewish assets.
((Paris newsroom, +33 1 4221 5339, fax +33 1 4236 1072, paris.newsroom+reuters.com))
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.

ICMS website:

http://www.icms.org.pl/
Not exactly a WWW highlight, but it is a start.......
Ton Cremers

Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 12:31:17 -1000
To: TonCremers@museum-security.org
From: Robin Rogers riskmgmt@lava.net
Subject:

Response to Response

Ton: I guess I misunderstood the purpose of your forum. I thought it was to share ideas and not really to attack one another. Since you chose to publish the response to mine, I must assume I misunderstood your forum.
It is clear the gentleman has not the same experiences. But since you published his thoughts it must be you hold his opinion in some regard.
So please remove me from your mailing list and future correspondence. I do not think I want to be affiliated with an organization that support such responses. Thank you. R.Rogers
PS: Thanks for the help in identifying resources for my previous losses. it was of great help and an education for my clients.
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Reply by Ton Cremers:

Dear Robin,
You are right: the MSN forum is intended to share ideas and information and not to attack one another. Since this is a moderated list every now and then I am forced to act as censor. I am very glad this does not happen very often. On the other hand I am very much opposed to being censor. Censorship in a way is very undemocatic. I do believe in the principle of democracy and freedom of speech. Being moderator of a mailinglist in this way is a difficult task. I regret if you feel insulted. If you do feel offended I invite you to get in touch with this 'gentleman' and work this out between the two of you off list. I hate to see you leave this list but cannot do anything else then respect your decision. Please do come back whenever you like. At the moment the list has some 550 subscribers worldwide and we welcome new participants every day. There are very few unsubscribe messages, which I am very proud of. People seem to appreciate the service offered. Taking part in a forum like this one means that you will be confronted with opinions that are not yours. In the long run opposition is the source of growth. It is almost impossible to develop ideas without opposition. Most of the time input in this list is mine. As a matter of fact the list is 90% a collection of newspaper and press agencies articles. This thread on Sprinkler systems not only is very informative but also made the list as interactive as I would like it to be. Please keep sharing this experience with all its advantages and disadvantages.
Yours,
Ton Cremers

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