ACRL/RBMS Security Committee ALA Annual Meeting Chicago, IL Palmer House Hilton, Burnham 1 Saturday, June 24, 2017, 3:00-5:30pm Members in attendance: Michael Inman, New York Public Library (Co-Chair); Lois Fischer Black, Lehigh University (Co-Chair); Sarah Allison, New Mexico State University; Cynthia Becht, Loyola Marymount University; Barbara Bieck, New York Society Library (Recording); Ellen Cordes, Lewis Walpole Library; Sara Logue, Princeton University; Ron Patkus, Vassar College; Audrey Pearson, Beinecke, Yale University; Carly Sentieri, Miami University Guests: Martin Desmarais, University of Alberta; Moira Fitzgerald, Beinecke, Yale University; Margaret Gamm, University of Iowa; Linda Isaac, University of Miami; Alex Johnston, University of Delaware; Jeffrey Marshall, University of Vermont; Nicholas Martin, New York University; Patrick Olson, Michigan State University I. Welcome and Introductions Michael Inman called meeting to order at 3:00 p.m. II. Selection of Recorder Barbara Bieck volunteered to record the minutes. III. Approval of Minutes Minutes from the 2017 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Atlanta were approved without edits. IV. Chair s Report Michael reported that the committee has six incoming members as of July 1. In addition, an intern having a one-year appointment will also join the committee. Two members, Rachel D Agostino and Marlayna Christensen, resigned from the committee over the past year; Michael thanked them in absentia for their service. V. Updates on Ongoing Projects and Initiatives A. RBMS Conference Report Sara Logue reported on the participatory session held during Iowa City RBMS. Ahead of the session, conference attendees were polled on their security interests, and 36 responses were received. The results of the poll indicated that most people were interested in discussing day-
to-day security issues such as how to hire students to work directly with collections, the marking materials, security within collections spaces, and digitization/digital security. Sara reported that the session was attended by 90 people. In order to encourage candid conversations about potentially sensitive topics, the session was not recorded, and attendees were asked to stay off social media. Audrey Pearson noted that the session was a good environment to hear what other people are doing at their institutions, and about people s interactions with other departments. This session was especially helpful for people new to the profession who want to learn more about security best practices. B. Transition of Theft Reports Update Blog Barbara Bieck is taking over theft report duties from Audrey Pearson. C. Incidents of Theft Audrey reported on several incidents occurring since ALA midwinter 2017. 1. More than 160 rare books were stolen from a warehouse near Heathrow Airport in January. The stolen items, which belonged to three book dealers, were valued at over 2 million. This theft received much media coverage due to its Mission Impossible nature: the thieves lowered themselves on ropes from a rooftop skylight. There has been no recent update on the missing items, but a list of the stolen items is available. 2. Approximately 300 rare books were stolen from Rio de Janeiro Federal University in April 2017. 3. In May, it was announced that a Harry Potter manuscript had been stolen from a private residence in Britain. Audrey was unable to report on Security Committee blog stats, as the last two Google Analytics reports were empty. She will send a report at a later date. Moira Fitzgerald reported on an incident at the Beinecke Library. A donor came in to review an archival collection comprised of his own personal materials, and it was later noticed that he was editing/marking on these papers. This incident highlights a common but little-discussed situation: that is, dealing with donors who feel entitled to alter or rearrange collection materials, not understanding that the materials are no longer theirs. In response to this incident, the institution has reviewed its procedures with staff to ensure that a similar incident does not occur. Lois Black reported on an incident at Lehigh University that highlights the importance of marking books. Lehigh University was contacted by a person who discovered a Lehigh University book listed by an auction house on ebay. Lois contacted the auction house; however, they were not forthcoming as they believe that the item they were auctioning was legitimately deaccesioned by the university. Lois then contacted Lehigh officials and the police to sort out the situation. 2
Michael reported on two incidents at NYPL: one incident involved the recovery of several items taken from the institution s General Research Division; the other occurrence involved of several long-missing items that had recently been consigned for sale at an auction house. D. State Laws Update Status Work on the State Laws update is nearly complete. Lois is reviewing the laws for the 5 states originally assigned to Marlayna, and Michael will review the laws for Washington, D.C. Once this work is completed, the updated links will be placed on the committee s webpage. VI. New Business A. Call for Web Team Liaison Michael called for a volunteer to serve as the committee s Web Team Liaison, in order to replace Rachel D Agostino, who previously held this role. The main responsibilities of the liaison involve checking links for accuracy and working with the Web Team to add content to the committee s webpage. Carly Sentieri volunteered to serve as liaison. B. Audit Tool Corrections need to be made to the Audit Tool, correcting the numbering schema so that it correlates with the revised Security Guidelines. Also, all mentions of LSO need to be changed to lower case. Finally, the committee will need to come up with questions related to classroom security, as a section on this topic was added to the Guidelines. C. Website Updates A review of the committee s webpage will be undertaken. Changes to the page fall into four main categories: standardizing format, changing section titles to reflect associated content, editing/consolidating content, and reordering sections. Ron Patkus noted there is no recent content under the section Library and Archival News. Lois reminded the committee that the purpose of that section is to announce new security publications and articles. It was suggested that the News section be re-titled Publications/Bibliography, and that this heading serve as a link to a separate webpage where the listing of articles would reside separately. In this way, the Publications section will follow the format of the webpage. The committee also suggests adding descriptions to each section. Michael will create a shared document that will be sent to members, requesting their notes and suggestions on the committee s webpage. He will also organize a conference call during which the process of editing the webpage can begin. 3
D. Future Programming Initiatives Moira mentioned that Yale will be hosting a full-day program, Security for Special Collection Librarians, on Sept. 19, as part of the annual conference of the International Federation for Cultural Property Protection. Ideas for potential programming at the 2018 and 2019 RBMS Conferences were discussed. Potential discussion/programming topics included: 1. The barriers that people encounter when trying to access materials to their own community: e.g., what do you if a patron doesn t have an ID, and what are the security implications? 2. Security and donor relations. 3. Repatriation and theft recovery. 4. Exhibition loans: e.g., security concerns related to sending loan objects abroad and issues of cultural patrimony and seizure. 5. Maintaining security practices while remaining welcoming: the challenges and best practices. 6. The current state of special collections security: i.e., what is going on in the world (case studies of recent thefts, etc.) and, relatedly, what issues do the Guidelines currently not address. It was agreed that the 2017 participatory session in Iowa City showed interest in security-themed programming remains high. Accordingly, Michael asked the committee s members to further develop the above-listed ideas and report back to him in the near term, being mindful of the upcoming deadlines for submitting programming proposals for the 2018 RBMS Conference in New Orleans. E. Action Plan for Theft Situations It was decided that a discussion of an action plan for theft situations will be postponed until the 2018 Midwinter Meeting in Denver. Discussion of an action plan will involve responding to thefts in progress as well as how to deal the recovery phase of a theft. F. Other New Business. None reported. 4
VII. Public Hearing on Revisions to the ACRL/RBMS Guidelines Regarding Security and Theft in Special Collections The meeting was called to order again at 4:30 p.m. for the public hearing on Revisions to the ACRL/RBMS Guidelines Regarding Security and Theft in Special Collections. The document was reviewed, and substantive changes were pointed out. Comment and suggestions included: Part I, Section 7. Moira reviewed the new section related to classroom security, describing how these guidelines mirror those already found in the section governing Reading Room security. It was noted that this section does not include any Suggestions for implementation, as is the case for other sections of the Guidelines. At Michael s suggestion, Moira will draft suggestions for implementing classroom security. Part I, Section 9.2. Lois read a request from an institution to include watermarks in this section. Discussion then followed of whether to add watermarks to the list of items included in catalog records to assist with copy-specific identification. The committee noted that tracing watermarks is time intensive, and that watermarks are not necessarily copy-specific; therefore, it was decided that this recommendation would not be included at this time. Part I, Sections 2 and 3. Committee discussed the description of library security officer (lso). It was felt that additional language should be added to clarify that library security is, in a sense, everyone s job that it s not necessarily the role of one person or of a small group of individuals. Meeting was adjourned at 5:11 p.m. Prior to the adjournment, Michael thanked outgoing co-chair Lois Fischer Black for all of her work on behalf of the committee, and an appreciative round of applause was given by those in attendance. 5