Ms. Duggan:  First of all, you should never allow visitors to work in
storage and other non-public areas without supervision; all materials
should be moved to a reading room or the like for study and review.  Some
of the best examples of collections theft have been a result of a trusted
visitor given priveleged access to material without adequate supervision or
inspection of used materials/personal affects at the end of a session.

Visitors who will be given access to collections, or who will be moving
through non-public areas should be REGISTERED - e.g., their name,
identification, professional affiliation, mailing address (work and home?),
current local address, subject of research or purpose of visit, etc., and
they should be made to sign an agreement form (e.g., 'agreeing to abide by
procedures, rules', etc.) before being issued a VISITORS badge.  In
exchange for the badge you can retain a piece of photographic ID.
Alternatively, you can issue a more permanent ID with a client number on it
after registration, and the researcher need only sign in and out daily.
This is not unlike use of a reading room in an archives, or having access
to the back areas of a museum (e.g., the conservation lab).  It ensures
that you have information about who is/was there and what their business
is/was.  In addition, the form should list what collections were used
during the visit; this should be retained, as you would retain call slips.

You might also want to consider having your staff wear STAFF badges at all
times; consider new employees and noted movement of all unknown individuals
through your facility.

I hope this is of some assistance.  Let me know if you have any further
questions and we'll see if we can help.  Good luck!

Karen


At 02:42 PM 10/20/97 -0400, you wrote:
>We are examining our policy and procedures for access of to storage and
>other staff only areas by researchers or visitors.
>
>What kind of systems for badges, visitors log etc. do people use.
>How do you verify that the badges are returned to the proper place in
>the museum or that they are not reused?
>
>Thanks for any suggestions or resources of where to look at systems.
>
>Sylvia S. Duggan
>Assistant Registrar, Loans
>University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
>
>
>

******************************
Karen E.K. Brown
Field Service Representative
Northeast Document Conservation Center
100 Brickstone Square
Andover, MA  01810-1494
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Tel.(978) 470-1010
Fax (978) 475-6021
http://www.nedcc.org