The American Society for Industrial Security's Museum, Library and Cultural Property Committee will meet at 1:45 pm Sunday February 24, 1997 in Ballroom #1 of the Raleigh Hilton Hotel, Raleigh, NC in conjunction with the National Conference on Cultural Property Protection. The primary agenda items are a discussion of the proposed Library Security Guidelines and an in depth review of major proposed changes in the "Suggested Guidelines in Museum Security" to reflect the major changes made by Underwriters' Laboratories regarding "line security." Line security refers to the ability of someone to disconnect or defeat your alarm signal as it travels to the off-site central monitoring location. UL recently revealed that many museum alarm lines can be defeated due to high tech equipment being readily available at Radio Shack and other locations. Steve Keller and Tom Previs have drafted major changes to the Guidelines to reflect the UL changes. They are estimated to effect 50% to 75% of all museums. The Museum Association Security Committee will soon launch a home page and quarterly newsletter for members. the MASC is the security committee of AAM. A test version of the home page is deployed and is being used to transmit the proposed changes to the Guidelines to MASC members. If you want to see the proposed changes to the Guidelines, go to: http://www.virtual-pub.com/masc/masc.htm Note that this is a temporary address and the page that is deployed is under construction. Steve Keller noted that the issue of the Guidelines is very complex and involves very complex technical issues. Some of the provisions in the changes may appear controversial so those wanting more information should attend the meeting or a follow up session on "Standards" at the Smithsonian Conference. If you are not going to be in Raleigh and want more information on the reasons for the changes, contact Steve Keller at (904) 789-6740. Other agenda items at the ASIS meeting are "new members", "1997 ASIS goals", and "ASIS seminar topics". Non-members are invited as observers at the meeting and are encouraged. The MASC will meet immediately following the ASIS meeting. If you download the text of the proposed Guidelines changes be aware that they must first be accepted by the committee, then by ASIS counsel, then by the ASIS Executive Committee. Do not distribute them or consider them to be "carved ins tone" until notified that they have passed. Posted by Steve Keller [log in to unmask]