Reposted from Forbes

Recent times have seen atrocities committed in many regions. While damage to person and property are often the focus of headlines, there is an element of these crimes that is often neglected, and neglected at a high price: the destruction of cultural heritage. To demonstrate this in an example, the atrocities perpetrated by Daesh resulted in the destruction of churches and places of worship for minority religious groups across Iraq. While these buildings can be rebuilt, these communities have lost the heritage that these buildings preserved, passed down through generations. The same example is reflected in the crimes perpetrated against Uyghur minorities in Xinjiang, which have also resulted in the destruction of mosques, causing the loss of links to generations past. The destruction of cultural heritage is an important, and often overlooked, element of the atrocity crimes. Indeed, the destruction of cultural heritage often means more to these communities than the destruction of the physical churches and places of worship. 

The destruction of cultural heritage may take various forms, both through the destruction of the tangible and intangible. Tangible heritage includes “monuments, religious or secular; buildings or groups of buildings which are of cultural value, either because of their architecture, homogeneity or place in the landscape, or because of their content, in the case of museums, archives or libraries; sites and movable objects (such as works of art, sculpture, manuscripts, books); underwater cultural heritage, including shipwrecks and underwater archaeological site.” Intangible heritage includes “the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge and skills that communities, groups, and, in some cases, individuals, recognize as part of their cultural heritage, together with the instruments, objects, artifacts, and cultural spaces associated therewith.” The intangible heritage will be ultimately destroyed as the people that make up targeted communities are displaced or killed. 

The destruction of cultural heritage is often a part of the atrocities, but too often is given little attention. However, as the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) to the International Criminal Court (ICC) explains in its recently published policy briefing, the destruction of cultural heritage is an element of international crimes that requires a comprehensive response, including investigations and prosecutions. As the briefing explains “crimes against and affecting cultural heritage are a pervasive feature of the atrocities within the [ICC]’s jurisdiction. Willful attacks on cultural heritage constitute a centuries-old practice that remains a feature of modern conflict.” Furthermore, as “cultural heritage as the bedrock of cultural identities, (…) crimes committed against cultural heritage constitute, first and foremost, an attack on a particular group’s identity and practices, but in addition, an attack on an essential interest of the entire international community.” 

The Rome Statute equips the ICC with jurisdiction over crimes against or affecting cultural heritage. For example, crimes against cultural heritage, carried out as a war crime in contravention of Article 8 of the Rome Statute, may include the directing of attacks against certain protected objects; the directing of attacks against civilian objects and other crimes which may nonetheless indirectly relate to cultural heritage. In September 2015, the OTP brought charges relating to cultural property for the first time ever in the case of Mr Ahmad al-Faqi al Mahdi, which arose out of the situation of Mali. In September 2016, al Mahdi was convicted of the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion and historic monuments following his own admission of guilt. The case sent a strong message that the intentional targeting of cultural heritage is a serious crime.

Crimes against or affecting cultural heritage frequently occur alongside genocide, “which may be effected by killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group, when committed with the requisite intent.” Furthermore “acts that are directed specifically against a group’s cultural heritage may assist to demonstrate the specific intent and the manifest pattern as required under article 6.”

Furthermore, the destruction of cultural heritage is an important early warning sign of an atrocity to come. Indeed, within the U.N. Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes, the destruction of cultural heritage constitutes a common risk factor for atrocity crimes (e.g. common risk factor 7, “Destruction or plundering of essential goods or installations for protected groups, populations or individuals, or of property related to cultural and religious identity.”) Similarly, such crimes are a risk factor of genocide (e.g. Risk factor of genocide 9, “Past or present serious tensions or conflicts involving other types of groups (political, social, cultural, geographical, etc.) that could develop along national, ethnic, racial or religious lines.”) As such, crimes against cultural heritage, as an early warning sign, can help to identify scenarios where they may later lead to atrocities. 

The destruction of cultural heritage is an important, and often overlooked, element of the atrocity crimes. Cultural heritage is as expressions of human life. As emphasized by the OTP, crimes affecting cultural heritage impact “our shared sense of humanity and the daily lives of local populations.” As such, they require comprehensive responses.

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Reposted from Union College

Fifty years ago this month, thieves broke a rear window on the ground floor to gain entry to Schaffer Library. They headed to a locked case and smashed the quarter-inch thick glass with a hammer to retrieve the bounty on display for Commencement weekend: a single volume of naturalist John James Audubon’s stunning “Birds of America.”

Measuring over three feet in height and running to four volumes that each weigh more than 40 pounds, “Birds of America” is one of the most celebrated books of natural history. It is also one of the world’s most valuable, worth an estimated $8 million to $12 million today.

Audubon had created about 200 copies of the set, which featured 435 hand-colored prints of 1,037 birds; only 120 sets exist today. Union President Eliphalet Nott paid Audubon $1,000 for a set in 1844. Except for a brief stay in Cooperstown, N.Y. for safekeeping during World War II, the prints have remained on campus as one of the College’s greatest treasures.

The daring theft in June 1971 generated headlines across the country. It also drew the attention of the FBI. John Holmes Jenkins III, a prominent rare book dealer and publisher from Austin, Texas, alerted the agency to a man he said had wandered into his shop weeks after the theft looking to sell pictures of birds discovered in an attic. To Jenkins, the prints sounded suspiciously like the ones he had seen in a notice about Union’s theft in the weekly Antiquarian Bookman.

Working with the FBI, Jenkins later met with the man at a Queens, N.Y., motel. Federal agents stormed the room. They eventually discovered the stolen Audubon prints, along with a number of rare books taken in a separate robbery in New York City, in the trunk of a 1970 gold Chevrolet Impala used by the suspect.

The cover page of the Audubon folio was missing and several of the plates were torn after being ripped from their binding. Blood stains dotted six of the prints, presumably after the thief cut himself on glass shards from the shattered case.

Lauded as a hero, Jenkins collected a $2,000 reward from Union, which he returned. The College used the money to create a bibliography award in his name. It also awarded him its Founders Day Medal and an honorary degree. He also served briefly as a member of the Board of Trustees.

Jenkins wrote a breathless account of his heroic deed for “Audubon and Other Capers: Confessions of a Texas Bookmaker.” Jenkins loved publicly sharing the story of his role in the recovery of the prints, stating, “It gets a little better each time I tell it.”

For decades, the version offered by Jenkins shaped the narrative of the heist.

It was not until the summer of 2011 that a broader picture of the theft emerged. Taking a fresh look at the heist on its 40th anniversary, the College’s alumni magazine published an exhaustive account that included many new details, including the origins of the crime.

The theft was traced back to a shady Brooklyn book dealer, James S. Rizek, who had done business with both the College and Jenkins. Rizek had served time for defrauding libraries, among his other crimes. He allegedly recruited others to steal the Audubon volume.

Most tellingly, the article included a bombshell claim from Kenneth Paull, the man who met with Jenkins at his shop in Texas in 1971 and was arrested at the Queens motel. A career thief from the Philadelphia area, Paull scoffed at Jenkins’s portrayal as a hero.

“I didn’t know an Audubon from a Schmaudubon,” Paull told the magazine. “I was a professional thief. Do you honestly think I just flew down to Texas and looked around for somebody to buy stolen goods? We did not do anything on spec. We had a customer.”

Paull, 87, is the last remaining character in the ordeal still alive, and his account cannot be corroborated. After a series of conversations with a Union Magazine writer in 2011 about his role, he said he no longer wished to discuss the heist.

Paull’s insistence that Jenkins played a far more sinister role touched off a fierce debate. Many who had done business with Jenkins found it plausible that he exaggerated and even grossly misrepresented his role in the recovery.

Wayne Somers '61, editor of the Encyclopedia of Union College History, worked at the library at the time of the theft. He has a different view.

“Because John Jenkins was pretty clearly guilty of several crimes, it's tempting to add his role in the Audubon affair to the list, giving a sinister spin to his later fictions,” said Somers. “But the vagueness of the phrase 'in on it' makes such a charge tendentious at best. Whatever 'in on it' may mean, Jenkins could have been 'in on it' only if the crooks wanted him to be, and they had every reason to want Jenkins to know nothing. Letting Jenkins know Rizek was involved would put Rizek's parole at risk, and letting him know the goods were stolen would devalue them. Nor was there any advantage to them in Jenkins knowing those things.”

Jenkins died in April 1989. His body was found floating in the Colorado River near Austin with a gunshot wound in the back of his head. A renowned poker player, he was deeply in debt, and some believed he was about to be indicted for setting fires to his warehouses to collect the insurance money. Even his death was murky. A justice of the peace ruled it a homicide; the county sheriff insisted Jenkins committed suicide to escape the troubles piling up his life.

More than 30 years after his death, there was renewed public scrutiny of Jenkins. In March 2020, Texas Monthly published a lengthy piece, “The Legend of John Holmes Jenkins,” which recounted some of his alleged misdeeds, including forgery and arson.

A more damning account of his life was the release the following month of “Bluffing Texas Style: The Arsons, Forgeries, and High Stakes Poker Capers of Rare Book Dealer Johnny Jenkins,” by Michel Vinson, a book dealer and one-time acquaintance of Jenkins.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, a reviewer said, “Mr. Vinson has solved the longstanding mystery of Johnny Jenkins. His research shows that, beginning with his college days, there was never a time when Jenkins was not cheating, swindling, stealing and lying.”

Vinson devoted nearly a full chapter to the Union heist, relying heavily on the 2011 alumni magazine article. He also shared new information that may explain in part Jenkins’s motivation in getting tangled up in Union’s crime.

Months before the heist, Jenkins had been rejected for membership in the prestigious Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, purportedly because of questions about his character. As someone who loved the limelight, he was stung by the rejection.

“If he could save the Audubon plates by turning on the crooks who thought he would be their fence, then he could recast his reputation,” said Vinson. “And that is exactly what happened. He was admitted to the association in 1972, was elected to the Board of Governors in 1975 and became president of the organization in 1980. No one ever learned that he was the original fence who was supposed to buy the stolen Audubon plates.”

No one was prosecuted for Union’s crime. That likely would not be the case today, said Geoff Kelly, a special agent with the FBI in Boston and a member of the bureau’s art crime team.

Formed in 2005 in part to track down antiquities that were looted from the Baghdad Museum after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the art crime team has recovered nearly 15,000 objects worth nearly $800 million and secured more than 90 convictions.

Federal statutes back in the 1970s did not have much meat on them to aggressively prosecute for interstate transportation of stolen property.

Referring to the Audubons, he said there is often a misconception about art theft.

“It’s not like ‘The Thomas Crown Affair,’” said Kelly. He is the lead investigator for the infamous Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, the largest theft from a museum in modern history. He was also involved in the high-profile investigation into the theft of quarterback Tom Brady’s game-worn jerseys in Super Bowls LI and XLIX.

“It is usually con men, criminals, bank robbers who do these things,” he said.

Fifty years after the dramatic Audubon theft, a definitive account remains elusive. Answers to key questions may forever stay a mystery.

Today, Union’s Audubon set looks better than ever. As part of a restoration project in 2006, each lithograph was removed from the four bound volumes, cleaned, mended and placed in special archival boxes. Individual plates are displayed periodically in a highly secure case in the Lally Reading Room in Schaffer Library.

Carl George, professor emeritus of biology, arrived at Union in 1967. From the moment he first viewed the Audubon folios, he has been inspired by their beauty and attention to detail. He was the first professor at the College to use them as a teaching tool for his students. Now 90, he continues to give presentations on the prints.

“Art and science are not that distant, and the Audubons are a great combination of science and art,” said George. “A good scientist is often times a fine artist, and an artist is often times a fine scientist. The Audubons speak to Union’s mission of uniting the different disciplines.”

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Reposted from Infosecurity Magazine

Ransomware attacks fell by 50% in Q1 2021 as threat actors shifted from using mass spread campaigns to focusing on fewer, larger targets with unique samples, according to the McAfee Threats Report: June 2021.

The researchers noted that the traditional approach of using one form of ransomware to infect and extort payments from many victims is becoming less prominent, mainly because the targeted systems can recognize and block such attempts over time. Instead, they see a trend towards fewer, customized Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) campaigns tailored to larger, more lucrative organizations.

As a result of this shift, the analysis found that the number of prominent ransomware family types declined from 19 in January 2021 to nine in March 2021. The most detected ransomware group in Q1 2021 was REvil, followed by RansomeXX, Ryuk, NetWalker, Thanos, MountLocker, WastedLocker, Conti, Maze and Babuk strains.

Raj Samani, McAfee fellow and chief scientist, explained: “Criminals will always evolve their techniques to combine whatever tools enable them to best maximize their monetary gains with the minimum of complication and risk. We first saw them use ransomware to extract small payments from millions of individual victims. Today, we see RaaS supporting many players in these illicit schemes holding organizations hostage and extorting massive sums for the criminals.”

Numerous high-profile ransomware incidents have taken place this year; these include the attacks on the US East Coast fuel pipeline operator Colonial Pipeline and meat processor JBS, both of which led to substantial payments being paid.

Another important finding from the report was that there was a 117% rise in the spread of cryptocurrency-generating coin mining malware, which McAfee said is as a result of a spike in 64-bit CoinMiner applications. Unlike ransomware, in which victims’ systems are locked up and held hostage until a cryptocurrency payment is made, Coin Miner malware infects organizations’ systems and then silently produces cryptocurrency using those systems’ computing capacity. This tactic means criminals do not need to interact with the victim, who may be completely unaware they are under attack.

Samani added: “The takeaway from the ransomware and coin miner trends shouldn’t be that we need to restrict or even outlaw the use of cryptocurrencies. If we have learned anything from the history of cybercrime, criminals counter defenders’ efforts by simply improving their tools and techniques, sidestepping government restrictions, and always being steps ahead of defenders in doing so. If there are efforts to restrict cryptocurrencies, perpetrators will develop new methods to monetize their crimes, and they only need to be a couple steps ahead of governments to continue to profit.”

In total, McAfee detected an average of 688 new malware threats per minute in Q1 of 2021, representing an increase of 40 threats per minute compared to Q4 of 2020.

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Reposted from AAM

All aquariums, zoos, and museums have core values—beliefs, philosophies, and principles that drive the organization. These values support the organization’s vision, shape its culture, and ensure that all employees are working towards the same goals. At the Monterey Bay Aquarium (MBA), for instance, we have eleven formally defined core values: service, inclusion, respect, teamwork, leadership, integrity, quality, innovation, communication, sustainability, and fun. As an institution and as individuals, we use these core values to direct our day-to-day activities, influence our interactions with others, and guide our future plans.

Following the departure of a long-tenured Vice President of Exhibitions, in May 2019, I became the second Vice President within a three-year period. Having experienced so much change, in addition to starting the most complex and technically challenging exhibition MBA had ever embarked upon, the Exhibitions team had not been able to establish a shared culture that fully embraced the organization’s core values.

During my first nine months, I met with everyone on my team individually and in groups. Staff shared what they thought did and did not work in our processes and culture. I attended meetings with staff in Exhibitions and from across the organization. I watched and I listened. What I saw and heard was a team that had gone through a great deal of disruption in prior years—comings and goings of staff, radical changes in job descriptions, inconsistent exhibition processes, leadership changes, emergence of dysfunctional and antisocial behaviors, emergence of fear, and for some, trauma. This resulting culture was not the fault of any one particular individual, but rather a perfect storm of factors that led to a team that did not embody trust, collaboration, or respect for their collective work.

After reflecting on the feedback, as a first step, I reorganized the division. This meant the departure of some staff and the addition of three new leadership positions to oversee content, design, and project management. I was ready to embark on the project of engaging all of the Exhibitions staff to work together to build a more cohesive and collaborative team. Then COVID happened. And like the rest of the world, MBA closed. Some of the Exhibitions staff was furloughed, then laid off. The rest of us shifted from working on-site to working from home, and staff anxiety increased due to an uncertain future. Many questions streamed through everyone’s mind: Would there be future layoffs? Who would be affected? Could we trust leadership in navigating us through a pandemic? How would we work remotely to develop and design the most complex exhibition MBA has ever created? 

The Exhibitions Division leadership team and I were all new to working with one another, and we needed to find common ground as a cohesive leadership team before we engaged our staff in the process of creating core values. We had conversations about the culture we, the leadership team, wanted within our division—the qualities we wanted to come forward (collaboration, communication, joy, positivity) and the type of environment we wanted to foster (creative, trusting, communicative, nimble). We also discussed the negative attributes we saw in various capacities that we wanted to get rid of (passive-aggressiveness, poor communication, ego). Based on these discussions, we developed a process that would hopefully be a safe space free of judgement and criticism, while empowering staff to step forward and help define our core values.

In August 2020, we began laying out our process for collaboratively defining a more cohesive team. We kicked off a multi-step process at a virtual all-division meeting which was attended by the entire Exhibitions staff.

Step 1: Ground rules

I defined the following ground rules for this process:

1. 1. This is your opportunity to have your voice heard, so be present and participate. Help shape our collective future.
   2. Be generous with each other during this process.
   3. Don’t name names.

Step 2: Define qualities we want in our working relationships

I asked each staff member to reflect on the following prompt: Think about a personal friend or professional colleague (past or present) that you admire and/or strive to emulate. What are the qualities that this person embodies that you think are important for the work environment? For example, “clear communicator,” “honest,” etc.

I then asked staff to take ten minutes to write down as many qualities as they could that resonated with them and answer the prompt. Then I asked them to select the top three and post them to our collaborative virtual whiteboard.

Step 3: Define qualities we don’t want in our working relationships

I then asked staff to think about the following prompt: What kinds of behaviors are harmful to relationships at work? I reminded them that these behaviors were not confined only to some people, but could be things that all of us exhibited at different times. Staff took ten minutes to write down their thoughts then selected and posted their top three.

Step 4: Grouping behaviors

As a group, we then read through the harmful behaviors and clustered similar answers together. As we went through, staff expressed agreement about what their peers had shared. One person said they didn’t realize that other staff felt the same way they did, to which many others nodded in agreement.

Next, the entire team went back and read through the positive qualities, and again clustered similar qualities together. From the team’s responses, several clusters of values developed: creativity, collaboration, emotional intelligence, and communication. An additional value that came out was professionalism and work ethic. This last value became a significant point of discussion and wordsmithing for the leadership team and me, as these words can foster perfectionism and a white supremacy culture, neither of which we wanted to encourage.

Step 5: Defining our core values as a group

A few weeks later, the Exhibitions leadership team led several small group sessions for staff to reflect on what these words meant to them. After a second round of discussions, the leadership team and I further refined the distilled values. The entire Exhibitions staff was then given a chance to review and comment on the polished core values.

Our team holds MBA’s broader organizational values as our foundation, and the Exhibitions Core Values stand in the fore of our collective work. To keep them in the fore, we dedicate a part of each division meeting to core value shout-outs, where speakers describe how their colleagues exemplify specific core values. For example, in a recent meeting, I shared, “In support of the value ‘Effective Communication,’ I really appreciated when Erica asked me if the way she was organizing the exhibit messages and descriptions was an effective tool for me to review, as well as to share with others.” But we also use our core values as a means to move our work forward in a positive way when having an issue with a colleague. We bring each other in and reference what’s not sitting right based on our core values, for example, “We’re not giving each other the information we need to succeed, so we have some work to do in recommitting to effective communication strategies with each other.” Additionally, these core values have helped identify origins to problems without blame, in a case where, as one staff member put it, “critical feedback was never stated out loud because team members weren’t feeling mutually supported. So, we’ve identified some work to do on collaborative feedback sessions rather than blaming the person who didn’t speak up.”

As museums now work to reimagine themselves after COVID and increased calls to grapple with racial and social justice issues, now is the time for leadership to evaluate the cultural health of their departments and organizations as a whole. Collaboratively reassessing your values, or defining new ones, will produce more benefits than the time it takes to do this work. Your staff will feel invested and part of the greater whole. This foundational work will lead to better communication, productivity, and harmony amongst staff. In the Exhibitions Division at MBA, our staff has embraced the Exhibitions Core Values as part of the active and collaborative culture within the division. They shape how we interact with our colleagues within the division and across the organization, so that we create, support, and lift up our peers with positivity, empathy, and joy. They give everyone a chance to offer appreciation, feel appreciated, and provide working examples of bringing each other in with integrity, dignity, and passion.

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Reposted from Allied Universal

The threat of an active shooter is a possibility anywhere. But as with any crisis situation, preparation and planning can help to minimize chaos and injury. Establishing an active shooter protocol, and communicating that plan to your tenants and employees, is critical. Your plan should:

• Stress the importance of remaining calm in any violent situation.

• Encourage anyone involved to call 911 in an emergency.

• Enforce the importance of remaining on the line with the 911 operator until police arrive because needs may change as an event unfolds.

• Detail how to warn employees an active shooter is present. Code words, intercom capabilities and instant messaging can help ensure people are aware of the situation and stay out of harm’s way.

• Include evacuation and lock-down procedures.

• Discuss how employees can observe details of the shooter in case the perpetrator leaves the premises.

• Train people to take accurate head counts and to check others for injuries.

• Conduct mock shooter drills.

The response to an active shooter situation will be determined by the particular circumstances. It is important to assess the situation and make the best choices for the individual event.

If an active shooter enters your workspace, call the police and give the location and description of the shooter if possible, and attempt to negotiate with the shooter, but do not attempt to overpower them with force — that should be the last resort.

When possible, evacuate the building if it appears safe to do so. This may need to be through a window or back door. The safest exits in an emergency may not be the main hallways or doors—well-marked exits could be targets for potential shooters. It is crucial not to assume help will quickly come to evacuate the location as active shooter incidents are the most chaotic, confusing and difficult scenes to manage. The first responders’ priority will be to contain the shooter. If you are able to and decide to flee the building, have an escape route in mind, bring a cell phone, keep your hands visible and do not stop to assist wounded victims or move them. Instead, tell the police where they are located.

If there are no safe escape routes, a lock down might be a better choice. Immediately notify the police of where you are, and conceal yourself in a room that can be locked or barricaded. Turn off the lights and stay away from doors and windows to create the impression that no one is there. When the police arrive, move slowly, keep your hands visible and follow all instructions. 
 

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Reposted from AAM

The near term future is looking much brighter than it was in March 2020, when I published my first set of scenarios exploring how the COVID-19 pandemic might play out. While the death toll in the US has surpassed 600,000 (a grim statistic that falls between the middle and worst case scenarios I explored at the beginning of the COVID-19 shutdowns), cases and deaths are both trending downwards. Over forty percent of the US population is vaccinated, including over 76% of people sixty-five or older (the age cohort most grievously damaged by the coronavirus). Many states and municipalities are lifting restrictions, and as of the end of April, over 70 percent of US museums had reopened to the public.

This progress doesn’t mean that museums can relax their planning, trusting that everything will continue to get better over the remainder of the year. The current promising trajectory could be disrupted by a number of factors, and scenario planning is just as important now as it was in spring 2020. In today’s post, I summarize recent findings that suggest a scenario in which the US recovery from the pandemic slows, and we experience new surges in some areas.

Last week the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the Delta variant of the novel coronavirus, also known as B.1.617.2, is now considered a “variant of concern.” Research suggests that this variant, which was first identified in India, is 60 percent more contagious than the Alpha strain that originally dominated the US, and is associated with double the risk of hospitalization. While the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines seem to provide good protection against Delta, there is some laboratory evidence that they may somewhat less effective.

At the time of the CDC announcement, the Delta variant was responsible for 10.3 percent of US Covid-19 cases, up 6 percent from only a week ago. Ten percent is about the “tipping point” at which when Delta began spreading rapidly through the UK, where it is now the dominant strain. Dr. Eric Topol, the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, recently noted that as the Delta variant “doubles every seven to 10 days…when it gets to three weeks from now, this variant will be dominant. That means we have two to three weeks to just go flat out with vaccination to stop this trend.”

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look likely we’ll be able to supercharge the vaccination rate in the US. Although 43.9 percent of the US population is fully vaccinated, the rate at which people are getting vaccinated has been slowing down, and some states have stalled at dangerously low levels: Mississippi 29%; Alabama  <31%; Arkansas, <33%; Louisiana, Georgia, and Wyoming all <34%, according to CDC data. Elsewhere in the country, there are localized communities with very low vaccination rates. (For example, in Borough Park, NYC less than 11% of the population is vaccinated, due to vaccine hesitancy among Hasidic Jews). And some demographic groups, such as children under the age of 12 and people who are immunocompromised, remain at risk because they aren’t yet eligible for or can’t safely use the vaccine.

For all these reasons, museums—particularly museums in states or communities with low vaccination rates—should be prepared for the possibility of a local surge in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, and reimposition of precautions such as closures, limits on attendance, and mandatory masking. (The contagiousness and severity of Delta has prompted the British government to delay easing their coronavirus restrictions by a full month.) Even local surges could affect attitudes nationally about continued mask use, distancing, and willingness to visit museums.

This isn’t a forecast or prediction, it’s just sketching, for your radar, a near term future that falls well within the bounds of the Cone of Plausibility. (I’d peg it to the “plausible” Zone in the following diagram of the Cone—the area which current knowledge suggests a set of conditions “could happen.”)

What can museum people do?

• Monitor local COVID metrics and announcements from the CDC, state and local government to track the effect Delta is having on your community.
• Prepare a plan for responding to a COVID resurgence—including communications, internal procedures, and budgeting for reclosing and reopening.
• Finally, even if things continue to improve in your community, remember that everyone is recovering (physically and psychologically) at their own rate, and for many the trauma of the past year will linger for a long time. Your staff and your community continue to need your support and understanding as we emerge from the pandemic.

Never assume you know what the future will be, especially in such an unsettled year. Spending a little mental and emotional energy on scenarios now will make a potential crisis less costly.

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Reposted from Smithsonian Magazine

Greek police finally cracked a nine-year-old art heist this week, leading to the celebrated return of two paintings by Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian. These works and one unrecovered drawing were stolen from the National Gallery-Alexandros Soutsos Museum in Athens on January 9, 2012, in a sensational early-morning heist.

Acting on tips from Greek newspaper Proto Thema, police apprehended their primary suspect, construction worker George Sarmatzopoulos, on Monday, per a police statement.

To the surprise of officials, Sarmatzopoulos confessed to the theft outright. He then directed police to a dried ravine southeast of Athens, where they discovered the two stolen artworks wrapped in protective plastic and stowed underneath a thicket of brambles.

Based on the well-organized nature of the crime, police had previously assumed that the burglary was carried out by two or more people, as the Associated Press reported in 2012. But in his testimony, partially reprinted in the Greek newspaper Kathimerini, the 49-year-old divorcee claims that he alone pulled off the job.

“I want to tell you something else that I did many years ago, and it weighs on my conscience and I cannot sleep,” Sarmatzopoulos began his statement to police, as translated by the Art Newspaper and reported in Kathimerini. “In 2012, I went into the National Gallery and took three paintings. I will tell you everything in as much detail as I can remember.”

Sarmatzopoulos further claims that he began to visit the National Gallery constantly for about six months leading up to the crime, until thoughts of stealing a work for himself “tormented” him. He never planned to sell the paintings, he claims: “I hadn’t decided which work I would take, but only that I wanted to take one.”

Rather, he seems to have intended to keep the works to enjoy. The man referred to himself multiple times as an “art lover,” and used to wield the Twitter username “Art Freak,” as Helen Stoilas reports for the Art Newspaper.

Sarmatzopoulos says that he spent months collecting information on the locations of paintings, security cameras, where to enter and exit the building and when the guards typically took smoke breaks, as Helena Smith reports for the Guardian.

On a randomly chosen Sunday evening, he says that he began to intentionally set off alarms in the museum without entering the building, prompting the sole night guard on duty to disable at least one of the alarms. Around four in the morning, dressed in black, the alleged thief then entered through an unlocked balcony door and crawled into the galleries.

“I crawled into the room and started waving my arms to see if the alarm radars were working,” Sarmatzopoulos relates in his testimony, as printed in Kathimerini and translated via Google Translate. “Since I did not hear any alarm, I assumed that the guard had turned it off. I got up and found myself in front of Picasso’s painting.”

In less than seven minutes, he carefully stripped three works from their frames: Woman’s Head (1939), a Cubist portrait that Picasso made of his one-time lover Dora Maar; Piet Mondrian’s Stammer Mill (1909), an early figurative work by the Dutch artist depicting a windmill; and a work in pen and ink by Italian artist Guglielmo Caccia, dating to the 16th century.

While the two paintings were recovered this week, the third stolen work remains missing. Sarmatzopoulos tells police that the paper was damaged during the raid and that he eventually flushed it down a toilet, BBC News reports.

He stowed the works in his home and in a remote warehouse for years. Then, in January, after reading a report that police were close to solving the decade-old mystery, Sarmatzopoulos frantically moved the paintings from storage to their hiding place in the ravine, as Dimitris Popotas and Aria Kalyva report for Greek newspaper Proto Thema.

At the time of the theft, Greece’s economy was reeling from the economic recession and a protracted debt crisis, per the Guardian. Later investigations found that limited funding led to severe security lapses at the museum, including a lack of guards, an outdated alarm system and reduced security camera coverage.

The National Gallery closed shortly after the heist in 2013 for an 8-year-long, $70-milion (€59 million) expansion, which more than doubled the museum’s size, as William Summerfield reported for the Art Newspaper in March. Though attendance remains limited due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the museum finally reopened on March 24 of this year to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Greek independence, the Ministry of Culture noted in a statement.

“Today is really a special day, a great joy but also a great emotion,” Minister of Culture and Sports Lina Mendoni said at a Tuesday press conference, per the police statement.

Mendoni notes that Picasso donated Woman’s Head to Greece in honor of the country’s resistance to Nazi Germany during World War II. On the back of the canvas, the Spanish artist wrote in French: “For the Greek people, a tribute by Picasso.” (That distinctive signature would have made the painting “impossible” to sell on the black market, the minister adds.)

“Picasso had dedicated the painting to the Greek people as a recognition of the National Resistance,” Minister of Citizen Protection Michalis Chrysochoidis said during the conference, per the statement. He noted that while “[a] Greek was found to deprive” the country of the precious painting, “Greeks were found to bring it back.”

Chrysochoidis added: “I wish all the works of art of our Greek homeland to find their natural place, to return to where they belong.”

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IFCPP is honored to appoint Michael-John Waite as the newest member of its prestigious Advisory Board! Michael-John is an active IFCPP contributor that has provided the Foundation with a host of timely and outstanding educational offerings and other valuable resources. His expertise in a variety of areas is on the cutting edge of cultural property protection. IFCPP and its managing entity, Layne Consultants International, are proud to partner with Mr. Waite and Armite International to bring additional resources to the Foundation’s growing community.

Michael-John Waite, CIPM II serves as the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Armite International Security Solutions, a minority and veteran-owned strategic advisement company in the Washington, DC Metro Area. Michael-John specializes in intelligence gathering/threat monitoring, controversial artwork/collections, protests and civil unrest, risk assessment (TVRAs), litigation avoidance/management, emergency management, physical and electronic security measures, security operations centers, communications and PR, and Executive protection.  He also serves as the Director of Crisis & Risk for the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC. Michael-John oversees several critical-operations programs including Intelligence and Investigations, Emergency Preparedness, and Crisis & Risk Management.

Additionally, Michael-John serves as a legal liaison and active shooter response/preparedness instructor.  Michael-John has worked with several global organizations to develop emergency preparedness/response procedures, manage security operations and personnel, and conduct investigations. Michael-John holds professional certifications as a Red Cross Instructor, Executive Protection Specialist, Certified Institutional Protection Manager (CIPM II), and security technology installer/maintainer. Previously, Michael-John contracted with the Department of Defense and served as a Reserve Deputy Sheriff. Michael-John is an active member of ASIS International, AAM, IAAPA, and InfraGard. He is also a member of, and regular instructor for the International Foundation for Cultural Property Protection (IFCPP). Michael-John holds a Bachelors of Science in International Relations and Global Security Management, is working towards a Masters, and is preparing for Certified Protection Professional (CPP) certification. When not involved in security related functions, Michael-John also serves at the President of Anchor & Vine Global Outreach, a non-profit organization dedicated to international missions and humanitarian aid. 

Reposted from AAM

African American museums across the country bear a glorious responsibility to educate and engage, to inform and inspire, to bring together and build. As anchors for this engagement throughout the year, we celebrate cultural holidays, from King Day in January to Kwanzaa in December, embracing them as opportunities to celebrate heritage and inspire hope. In the middle of the year lands Juneteenth, a festive cultural holiday that reminds all Americans to remember the past, reflect upon the present, and renew ourselves for the future. Juneteenth is all at once a historical event, a cultural commemoration, and a reminder. It reminds us to be vigilant and to live out the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, “None of us are free until we are all free.”

It was on June 19, 1865, that the enslaved people of Galveston, Texas, learned they were free. The news arrived more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and months before the Thirteenth Amendment officially abolished the institution of slavery. One of many important milestones in the nation’s long journey toward emancipation, June 19 is unique in that it does not commemorate a legislative or bureaucratic achievement, but a community celebration of when the last of the enslaved people in the United States finally learned they were free.

African Americans have commemorated this date for 155 years, but the video-captured murder of George Floyd in May 2020 ignited a nationwide racial reckoning and sparked renewed interest in Juneteenth among more Americans than ever before. Many people across the nation discovered Juneteenth for the first time in 2020, and they channeled it as an opportunity to rise up against systemic injustices. Against the backdrop of 2020, Americans saw Juneteenth with new eyes, as an inflection point for asking important questions of ourselves and our society: What does freedom really mean? How long will injustice and inequity be the reality in America? What can I do to make change?

This renewed interest was an opportunity for Black museums, but we had to figure out how to seize that opportunity while contending with the public health guidelines that had forced museums to close our physical doors and rethink our approach to programming. So, I met with Ahmad Ward, Executive Director of the Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, and together we developed the idea of joining forces to host a national virtual collaboration uniting Black museums in celebration of Juneteenth.

In 2020, amidst COVID-19 realities and social justice aspirations, the inaugural national virtual Juneteenth collaboration brought a sense of cultural inspiration and historical information to communities across the country. Through robust media partnering, over ninety-two thousand people tuned in to the production, which featured appearances by the first African American Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Lonnie Bunch, the first African American Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden, as well as notable historians, spoken word artists, and other luminaries. The conversations held in homes and offices as people tuned in to the production helped to educate and empower viewers.

This year, what started as an idea for virtually uniting communities in lockdown has grown to an ongoing collaboration between ten of the nation’s premier Black museums. On June 15, Northwest African American Museum (NAAM) will join forces with nine other Black museums across the nation to commemorate Juneteenth and celebrate our shared mission to preserve and uplift Black history and culture with a virtual event, Juneteenth: Lift Every Voice. Unifying under the name of BlkFreedom Collective and around the theme “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” together we will commemorate the 156th anniversary of Juneteenth via a nationally televised virtual program featuring vibrant cultural and educational activations. Each museum has selected a theme from the Negro National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” to guide their short video contribution. As part of the program, NAAM will debut our new African American Cultural Ensemble (ACE), a choir that will explore the theme of hope with a multimedia performance. The virtual event will also feature guest appearances by members of the Congressional Black Caucus reading excerpts of the Emancipation Proclamation, as well as luminaries Dr. Johnnetta Cole and Lonnie Bunch reading excerpts of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

In addition to the virtual program, this collaborative Juneteenth program will feature a national expansion of NAAM’s Knowledge is Power Book Giveaway program, which provides free children’s books celebrating Black culture to K-12 students across the Seattle region. Sponsored by the T-Mobile Foundation, the nationwide Juneteenth extension of the program will provide culturally relevant children’s books for distribution at all ten BlkFreedom Collective museums plus five additional locations nationwide.

Spanning the entire country and united in mission, participating museums include America’s Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Amistad Research Center of Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, August Wilson African American Cultural Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, California African American Museum in Los Angeles, California, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan, Harvey Gantt Center for African American Arts + Culture in Charlotte, North Carolina, Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Northwest African American Museum in Seattle, Washington.

Museums serve as messengers. They memorialize moments and inspire movements. Our national virtual Juneteenth program hosted by a visionary network of African American museums this year aims to do all of this while uplifting the collective voice of our nation’s Black communities. For years, Black museums across the nation have stood as gathering places for heritage and hope in communities. It is within Black museums that history and destiny converge. It is there that we make sense of the painful past and envision a brighter future. By preserving the stories and traditions of our shared culture, Black museums inspire positive action in the present and help to shape the meaning of major inflection points like Juneteenth for future generations.

After years of community celebration and advocacy, Juneteenth is finally gaining traction as more states and companies designate it an official holiday. Today, forty-seven states and the District of Columbia recognized Juneteenth as a state or ceremonial holiday. Far fewer, however, recognize Juneteenth as an official, paid holiday for state employees. This year, NAAM supported the passage of legislation in the Washington State Legislature to make Juneteenth an official holiday in Washington, making it just the sixth state in the nation to observe Juneteenth in this way. Efforts to elevate Juneteenth to a federal holiday have been in the works for years as well, starting first with U.S. Rep. Barbara-Rose Collins, D-Michigan. Introducing a bill petitioning to make Juneteenth a federal holiday in 1996, Rep. Collins said, “We must revive and preserve Juneteenth not only as the end of a painful chapter in American history, but also as a reminder of the importance of preserving the lines of communication between the powerful and powerless in our society.” The lessons of the past can be used to make America a more equitable and just place for all. By uplifting communities, teaching a more inclusive American history, and preserving cultural milestones like Juneteenth, African American museums are illuminating a path to do just that.

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Reposted from CNN

Ramses Escobedo probably wouldn't call himself a hero.

But during the pandemic, he was asked to act in some heroic ways. 

Escobedo, a bilingual Spanish-English librarian, manages a branch of the San Francisco Public Library.

For more than a year, however, Escobedo hasn't been lending out books. Instead, he's worked with a Covid-19 contact tracer team for San Francisco's Department of Public Health.

Covid has affected American schools, hospitals and businesses. But libraries -- which often serve people who have nowhere else to turn -- have responded in unprecedented ways. Like many of us, they've had to pivot, going from providing extensive in-person services and programming onsite in branches to quickly establishing virtual lectures and classes, and contact-less material pickup, as well as services that were strictly Covid-related like Escobedo's assignment.

As a city worker, Escobedo's contract states he can be activated in an emergency. After his library closed in March of 2020, Escobedo was reassigned to a disaster service detail.

"It made sense for librarians ... to take on that role because we do outreach. We are in contact with the community every day," Escobedo told CNN. "I am proud to be part of this collective effort."

Escobedo's special assignment is part of a wider wave of libraries stepping up during the pandemic to do things that have little to do with books, but a lot to do with meeting community needs. This continues even as libraries are slowly reopening. And it reflects that they are public institutions offering services to anyone, for free. 

But it also shows how libraries operate as a kind of first responder. When they close, people notice. "That was my other home," Chris McDermott, a retired teacher who lives alone, said of the public library in her town of Ridgefield, Connecticut. "A lifeline."

Book bundles, curbside pickup and free Wi-Fi

A survey conducted in March of 2020 by the American Library Association found that 99 percent of the public libraries that responded were closed because of the pandemic. But the association, whose membership includes20,000 public library employees, found many libraries nonetheless added virtual programming, distributed free craft supplies, put together book bundles for families and offered curbside pickup services.

In Hartford, Connecticut, some public libraries became Covid-19 vaccine administration sites. Librarians there also cleared obstacles to allow patrons to use outside electrical outlets to charge cell phones. In Leominster, Massachusetts, about 50 miles west of Boston, librarians installed mobile hot spots at the city's senior and veterans' centers, both of which have large parking lots, enabling many more people to log onto the Internet.

"Anyone can go to the parking lot and connect to the Wi-Fi for free," Nicole Piermarini, the library's assistant director told CNN.

Librarians are now armed with new information about what critical needs they fill in an emergency. At the main downtown library branch in Hartford, for example, librarians learned how important their copying and fax machines are. Many patrons needed these services to obtain documents to submit to government agencies. So the librarians reoriented the entire first floor to make those services easy to access even during the pandemic. 

"We're the public help desk," said Bridget E. Quinn, president of the Hartford Public Library, as she gazed out her office window, which overlooks an Interstate 91 on-ramp. "When someone has a -- name the device -- and they have a question, they call us or they come in."

It's true for libraries big and small. Piermarini at the Leominster library in Massachusetts lent out laptops during the pandemic, and had staff on-hand outside to explain how to use them to any patrons checking them out if they didn't know how they worked.

Many libraries had to establish new remote services -- curbside pickup and online programming, for example -- virtually overnight when the March 2020 lockdown hit. And now patrons want those services to continue.

Revamping old services, maintaining new ones

As librarians emerge from Covid-19 closures, they are thinking about how they will maintain existing services along with the new ones. It reflects a broader struggle within the library services field, librarians say, because their mandate has done nothing but grow.

Now as many slowly re-open to the public for the first time in over a year and resume normal operations, they are having to strike a balance between safety and access. And many must do so while lacking the economic resources to fully serve their communities. Many are facing funding shortfalls at a time when public demand for services is up.

In some cases, libraries are re-opening even as many in the community aren't vaccinated. In Hartford, for example, while more than 50 percent of Connecticut residents are fully vaccinated, only about one-third of people in the state capital are.

"We're re-opening by degrees," said Quinn in Hartford. "It's an interesting conundrum: how do we make the library a warm, welcoming place but still keep a distance?"

Ever-expanding services but limited budget

Few public libraries are flush with cash, although they got a financial lifeline from the federal government during the pandemic in the form of the federal CARES act, which through the Institute of Museum and Library Services allotted $50 million to libraries. 

But library leaders say the pandemic money isn't sustainable. 

"The vast majority of public libraries are underfunded to meet the needs of their community," Michelle Jeske, the City Librarian for Denver Public Library, told CNN.

"Probably significantly underfunded," added Jeske, who is also president of the Public Library Association.

Many libraries are funded from city or county sales and use taxes, which fell sharply during the pandemic. If local budgets have a hole, libraries are often affected.

"If you were struggling before, because your budget was linked to a tax revenue stream, it's worse now," Jeske said of libraries. "Sales and use revenue in our city declined dramatically because people were staying at home."

It's not just books; libraries have to have computers. A lot of them. That made the closure of most libraries so dire for patrons without access to a computer or high-speed Internet at home.

"The community's needs keep growing and changing so we need to, too," Jeske said. "So we buy everything we used to buy -- say, 20 or 30 years ago -- and then we have also to buy computers and pay for Wi-Fi."

The ever-increasing demand for services comes as some of the most iconic libraries in America are still in the initial phases of reopening. The New York Public Library, for example, is only open for limited in-person browsing at most branches.

The future: Focusing on critical services and seeking partnerships

When American's libraries do fully re-open, many in the field hope communities will remember how critical their services proved to be during the pandemic, especially to those with the greatest needs, such as people experiencing homelessness.

"Public libraries are the most trusted institution -- certainly in government," Jeske in Denver told CNN. "We are free and open to everybody. And many libraries -- if not most -- are dedicated to serving the most vulnerable."

It's work that many parts of government are charged with tackling, but which librarians have no choice but to do since unlike offices, schools or businesses, anyone can walk into a public library for free. 

Librarians say going forward, they would like partnerships with public and private entities to help carry out the work libraries do. Public officials need to work with them to apply some of the lessons learned during the pandemic -- namely that if a situation arises where everyone has to do everything online, those who don't have access to a device or reliable Internet connection are often left behind without libraries. Quinn and others say it reflects a skills gap and a technology gap that librarians are uniquely positioned to help with.

Back in San Francisco, Ramses Escobedo says he misses his library where "people from all walks of life come in" and the city's residents "love their libraries." Working with the Covid contact tracing team has been exhausting.

But he'll never regret how he and his fellow librarians spent the pandemic.

"We all wanted to contribute in just any way we could," he says.

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