In a message dated 02-02-20 18:02:23 EST, you quote:

<< Prosecutors said Shawn Aubitz, 45, simply put the documents in his
briefcase
 and left the agency's field office in downtown Philadelphia. Federal
 officials are
 working to tighten security, National Archives Inspector General Paul
 Brachfeld said. He did not elaborate. >>

This story points up two major security issues which institutions don't seem
to want to address: (a) Too many employees of museums and archives are
allowed to exit their buildings without adequate guard inspections of
material they're carrying with them, and (b) archival documents, often more
valuable and saleable than many cumbersome museum artifacts, usually have no
institutional identification markings.

Considerations in A:  Guard inspections of staff bags & briefcases are often
not performed at all; when they are, they're usually perfunctory and
inadequate.  When guards do inspect, they often don't know what they're
looking for, due to inadequate training.  I can think of procedures to
alleviate this (e.g., the implementation of property passes and inspections
and sealing of bags by supervisors), but many people would consider such
measures draconian and time-consuming. But hey, aren't the safety and
integrity of collections important?  Staff can breathe down the necks of
outside researchers, but what protection do they have against the light
fingers of their colleagues?  What's the alternative?  What good is whining
about losses after the fact?

Considerations in B:  Whereas the museum tradition is to catalog objects at
the item level and to put unique numbers on them, the archival tradition is
not to identify individual documents--yet valuable pieces of paper are among
the most vulnerable and the easiest to steal.  And accidents happen--one
contrite but honest researcher once returned to my office several collection
items which he had inadvertently scooped up with his notes.  One practical
reason for not marking (let alone numbering) documents such as those in the
National Archives is the sheer magnitude of the work--it would take thousands
of hours of staff time to mark millions of pieces of paper--in fact, it may
not be humanly possible.  Ironically, another archival guideline is to avoid
marking papers because it "defaces" the documents.  When paper documents in
either a museum or archives are given identification markings, there are two
opposing theories.  One conservator I knew insisted that paper should be
marked with a hard pencil, to produce an impression which would still be
visible if the pencil were erased, for security purposes.  But most
conservators would blanche at that notion, choosing instead soft pencil, on
the theory that artifacts should not be altered or damaged by security,
cataloging, or inventory markings, and that markings should be reversible.
It seems to me that especially important historical documents, once acquired
by a repository, especially one of national significance such as the National
Archives, should get indelible identification marks to discourage thievery
and reselling, but there's an obvious processing problem in just identifying
and separating the valuable from the mundane (not to mention how the mundane
tends to get more valuable with age).

These are very serious problems which the museum, archives (and library)
communities should come to grips with (or, with which they should come to
grips, if you prefer).  Comments, anyone?

David Haberstich
(Fed up with institutions which don't take security seriously)

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