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 [log in to unmask] Tel.(978) 470-1010 Fax (978) 475-6021 http://www.nedcc.org