It's a hard question because the theft was perpetrated by the one person the institution was supposed to be able to trust absolutely. A larger institution could make an attempt at?preventing this by not allowing anyone to have unsupervised access to the archives or collections storage, but even this might fail as co-workers tend to get relaxed with one another, or the two people might decide to go in on it together. There's also a strong tendency to blame the victim in our society. My institution got burglarized last fall. Unbeknownst to any of us (on staff, on the board, or at the security?company), some parts of the security system had failed over time. Someone broke a window and stole cash and equipment (including my computer). While we received tremendous support from the community, there were also a lot of comments on web forums and in the newspaper call-in section about how we should've been more careful, we deserved it, etc. etc. So, I think regaining public trust and regard in that setting is pretty difficult too. I think prevention is the best course of action. Having ethics statements in place, carefully vetting the staff, talking about ethics a lot both within an institution and within the profession, and performing regular inventories all will go a long way towards deterring theft. All of that is easier said than done, though, especially for?smaller institutions. ? It's actually surprising that this problem isn't more widespread. The majority of the museums in this country don't have anywhere near the staffing, budget or controls of the New York State Library. There are so many tiny places out there?with one or two underpaid staff people, no collections security, and in many cases, a lot of unregistered and uncataloged items. The temptation must be overwhelming, yet I do believe that most people rise above it. Kate Mockler Curator of Education and Exhibits Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum 180 Thompson St. North Tonawanda, NY 14120 (716) 693-1885 -----Original Message----- From: Kara Lewis <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 8:52 am Subject: New York Archivist ?? I?am sure some of you have heard about the New York State Library archivist Daniel Lorello.? For those of you who have not, he is accused of stealing more than 300-400 items from the library within a five year period, maybe even longer.? He states that he did this to pay for household bills, family credit card bills, home renovations and such.? If you go to the Yahoo website, you will see that this is the feature story today.? ?? This incident raises issues of ethics and public trust in our institutions.? This is even more true for professionals who have regular unsupervised access to the collections.? My question is how do institutions, that go through an event such as this, change their policies regarding collections access?and?regain their dignity and?the public trust? ? ? Kara Lewis Collections Intern Indiana Historical Society Indianapolis, IN Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AOL Mail ! - http://webmail.aol.com ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).