INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION FORCULTURAL PROPERTY PROTECTION
News
Reposted from Museums Association
A majority of people believe that museums, galleries and heritage sites should take a stance on the climate crisis, according to new research.
In an online survey by the Audience Agency, 51% of people agreed with the statement that these venues “should take a stance” on climate change.
Forty-seven per cent of people took this view in relation to live cultural venues, and 53% about visitor attractions.
Large proportions of people also believe that cultural organisations should take a stance on other social issues, according to the research – with just under half saying this about each of the three categories of venue.
In addition, 51% of all respondents said that they prefer to go to cultural venues “which I know share my values”.
The Audience Agency said that while this result may seem close-run, there were far more people for whom organisations sharing their own values was “a positive driving attendance factor”.
Younger generations were much more likely to believe that organisations should take a stance.
Within generation Z (those aged between 16 and 24), 52% said organisations should take a stance on climate change, along with 57% of millennials (aged between 25 and 44). In contrast, only 21% of people aged over 44 believed this.
An even stronger generational divide was apparent for “other social issues”. Here, 62% of generation Z respondents, and 58% of millennials, wanted to see organisations taking a stance – compared to 19% of respondents aged over 44.
There was also a clear generational difference around which behaviours people would like to see permitted at live cultural events. Generation Z respondents were more likely to say that being allowed to do things like eat or drink, take photos or talk to others would encourage them to attend.
Overall, being allowed to take photos, eat or drink and move around made people more likely to want to attend live events, while permission to smoke or vape, talk on the phone or make other noise made people less likely to want to go.
The Audience Agency said that the preferences of younger audiences for more relaxed behavioural regulations “raises interesting questions about the increasingly different experiential tastes and expectations that venues may need to be prepared to cater to in the not so distant future”.
The survey results also suggest falling rates of cultural attendance. Among all respondents, 38% said they were attending less than they were before the pandemic, with only 12% increasing attendance.
Reported rates of attendance were also down compared to 12 months ago (with 35% attending less and 13% attending more).
Oliver Mantell, director of insight and evidence at the Audience Agency, commented: “Younger people are more likely to want organisations to align with their values and to take a stand on social and climate issues, as well as to prefer a wider range of permitted behaviours when attending cultural venues of all kinds. These groups will form an increasing share of audiences in the future (as they are already, given shifts in audience profiles since the pandemic).
“This suggests we are likely to see a shift in expectations on cultural venues, with pressure for more informal experiences (including more digital and social interaction), and for venues to be more value-led and outspoken about those values.”
Anne Torreggiani, chief executive of The Audience Agency, said: “These insights point to a changed role for organisations – we need to think about amplifying our social values, becoming a community resource, being prepared to join the conversation, creating opportunities for debate.”
The Audience Agency surveyed a nationally representative sample of 2,463 people for the summer 2023 wave of its Cultural Participation Monitor.
See Original Post
Reposted From AAM
Today, the School for Advanced Research (SAR) and the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) announced the release of the Standards for Museums with Native American Collections (SMNAC), a comprehensive document to help museums clarify and strengthen their roles as stewards, and improve the museum field as a whole with regard to Native American peoples, communities, and cultural items.
SMNAC grew out of a presentation made by Dr. Deana Dartt, a Coastal Band Chumash museum scholar, curator, and principal at Live Oak Consulting, at the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums (ATALM) conference in 2017. Her presentation pointed out the need for change and resulted in the development of these standards by a core group of individuals in collaboration with SAR, in consultation with AAM, and with input from 70 museum professionals working with Native collections.
“Shifts within the museum field need to happen at multiple levels,” said Elysia Poon, director of the Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) at SAR. “This document provides a pathway for how these changes might occur. It has been a privilege to have the opportunity to guide the development of this document with Deana Dartt, and work with so many passionate individuals who are committed to making museums a better place.”
Adds Dr. Dartt, “Historically, it has been daunting for even those who earnestly want to be collaborative with and inclusive of Indigenous perspectives—this document is a game-changer. The SMNAC can help all institutions be better allies to the people of the land, no matter their size or capacity.”
“The SMNAC is the result of years of work from experts who are guiding a field-wide effort to take the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) several steps further,” said Brooke Leonard, Interim CEO at AAM. “It provides a new level of support for institutions to become community partners, further enabling them to connect collections with descendent communities for more meaningful, relevant and culturally sensitive interpretation and documentation.”
The SMNAC will serve to guide all aspects of work within museums holding Native collections, making recommendations grouped around the seven function areas as identified by AAM’s Core Standards: Mission and Planning, Collections Stewardship, Facilities and Risk Management, Education and Interpretation, Leadership and Organizational Structure, Financial Stability, Public Trust and Accountability. The document has been added to AAM’s Framework for Museum Excellence and will be used as guidance to inform Museum Assessment Program and Accreditation reviews for museums with Native American collections.
The SMNAC provides case studies from several institutions that exemplify meaningful collaboration and inclusion and a list of resources for further exploration and research.
The specific goals of SMNAC are to:
The development of the SMNAC is generously supported by the Anne Ray Foundation with additional support by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
The SMNAC is currently available for download at https://sarweb.org/smnac
Reposted From The Art Newspaper
The British Museum was evacuated Tuesday morning after a man was stabbed close to the London institution’s main entrance at 10am, just as the museum opened to the public.
Police confirmed that a man had been arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm. The victim’s injuries are not thought to be life-threatening, while the incident is not thought to be terrorism-related.
The Evening Standard newspaper claimed the man was stabbed while queuing to enter the museum, although this has not been corroborated.
Speaking to The Art Newspaper, eye-witnesses close to the scene reported seeing a man estimated to be in his 30s in the process of being arrested, while a large knife was taken from the scene of the crime in an evidence bag. Another eye-witness reported seeing a large amount of blood pooled on the pavement where the incident took place.
George Osborne, the chairman of the British Museum and the UK’s former chancellor, said in a post on X (formerly Twitter): “Disturbing news of a knife attack near the gates of the British Museum this am. Much thanks to our security team and other BM staff, who reacted quickly, with the police. Museum has now reopened; everyone’s thoughts at the BM are with the victim and we wish him the best recovery.”
The incident prompted a significant police response and an arrest was made soon after the attack took place, close to the corner of Great Russell Street and Museum Street. A significant police presence assisted in evacuating the museum while cordoning off the adjoining street, which was kept in lockdown for around two hours after the incident took place. Staff at nearby businesses said they weren’t allowed to leave their premises throughout this time.
Photographs shared on social media showed a police tent erected close to the railings of the museum while they tended to the victim. The victim was stabbed in the arm, police confirmed, and was later transferred to a major trauma unit at a local hospital via ambulance.
Speaking to The Art Newspaper, a British Museum spokesperson said: “The museum was closed this morning due to an incident following a member of the public being attacked nearby. The Museum’s security team supported at the scene until the emergency services arrived. Visitors were evacuated from the museum as a precaution and we wish the victim a full and swift recovery.”
The museum reopened to the public at around 12.30pm, but with a heightened security protocol. Long queues of people were seen waiting to gain access to the museum, with extensive searches being conducted by museum staff on a condition of entry. Armed police were also visible close to the museum. A museum spokesperson confirmed to The Art Newspaper: "As a precaution, the museum raised security including a heightened search operation."
The British Museum is one of the most popular cultural attractions in the UK, with around two million people visiting the institution between April 2021 and March 2022.
In a statement released by Scotland Yard, London’s Metropolitan police said a man was being treated for a stab wound to his arm and that his condition was being assessed. “This was an isolated incident and there is no outstanding risk to the public,” the statement said. “It is not being treated as terror-related.”
Reposted From Artnet News
The museum has launched an investigation to recover the jewelry, semi-precious stones, and other objects.
The British Museum in London has fired an employee after it discovered several valuable items in its collection were missing.
The objects include pieces of gold jewelry, gems and semi-precious stones and glass dating from the 15th century BCE to the 19th century C.E., the museum said in a statement. The pieces were not on display but kept in a storeroom for academic and research purposes.
The individual believed to be responsible for taking the items was fired after an “independent review,” the statement said, noting that the situation is also under investigation by the Economic Crime Command of the Metropolitan Police. The museum said it plans to take legal action against the employee.
“The trustees of the British Museum were extremely concerned when we learned earlier this year that items of the collection had been stolen,” George Osborne, chair of the British Museum, said in the statement. “We called in the police, imposed emergency measures to increase security, set up an independent review into what happened and lessons to learn, and used all the disciplinary powers available to us to deal with the individual we believe to be responsible.”
“Our priority is now threefold,” Osborne continued. “First, to recover the stolen items; second, to find out what, if anything, could have been done to stop this; and third, to do whatever it takes, with investment in security and collection records, to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
“This is a highly unusual incident. I know I speak for all colleagues when I say that we take the safeguarding of all the items in our care extremely seriously,” added British Museum director Hartwig Fischer. “The Museum apologizes for what has happened, but we have now brought an end to this—and we are determined to put things right.”
Fischer explained that the museum has tightened security arrangements and is working with outside experts to “complete a definitive account of what is missing, damaged and stolen.”
“This will allow us to throw our efforts into the recovery of objects,” he said.
A spokesperson for the British Museum declined to comment when asked about the value of the items and when they were found to be missing, citing the “fact that this is an ongoing police investigation.”
An investigation into the incident will be led by Lucy D’Orsi, Chief Constable of the British Transport Police, and former British Museum trustee Sir Nigel Boardman, who will jointly recommend security adjustments. “They will also kickstart—and support—a vigorous program to recover the missing items,” per the institution’s statement.
“The British Museum has been the victim of theft and we are absolutely determined to use our review in order to get to the bottom of what happened, and ensure lessons are learned,” said Boardman, a recently-retired corporate lawyer. “It will be a painstaking job, involving internal and external experts, but this is an absolute priority—however long it takes.”
Reposted from NPR
Within a couple of days of the start of Maui's fires, government officials, preservation experts and contractors were meeting to talk about how to coordinate the cleanup effort with the salvaging and documenting of cultural artifacts.
"I hope we can work toward understanding what the needs are with regard to historic preservation and the resources that are important to our people, important to our history," said archeologist Tanya Lee-Greig, kicking off the discussion. Lee-Greig has overseen cultural preservation projects on Maui.
Janet Six, principal archaeologist for the County of Maui, was also at the meeting, held online. She said the reason officials and culture workers are focusing on the tourist town of Lahaina is because of how the fires ravaged the national historic landmark district.
"It's a landmark district we're dealing with, so we're wanting to expedite the emergency situation," Six said in an interview. "But at the same time, we need to be mindful that we're working in an area with buildings, some of which are 150 years old."
Six said people have been living in Lahaina for more than a thousand years; it has a complex past.
"[Native Hawaiians] made an island called Moku'ula in the middle of a wetlands," Six said. "And that became the royal seat."
Moku'ula served as the private residence of King Kamehaha III in the mid-1800s and the Hawaiian Constitution was drafted there. But by 1919, local authorities backfilled the wetlands, burying Moku'ula and turning it into a park.
"That's now under a baseball field," Six said. "Outta sight, outta mind."
Most of the historic landmarks in Lahaina that survived before the fire had dated back to the colonial sugar plantation era of the 1800s, because the plantations destroyed the pre-colonial sites.
But the fire has damaged these structures; now they're in various states of collapse, and their artifacts are endangered or incinerated. Lahaina's Heritage Museum was housed in the Old Courthouse. Its roof collapsed, though much of the walls are still standing, because they're constructed from heat-resistant coral.
Kimberly Flook, deputy executive director of the Lahaina Restoration Foundation, which oversees historic buildings, said they hadn't yet been allowed back to survey the damage. She's worried many of the museum's most precious items are lost: the flag that was lowered when the Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown, Kapa artwork pieces, feather work from native Hawaiians.
It makes her grateful for the extensive digitization the museum completed a few years ago.
"We may have lost the physical elements," Flook said, "but we have amazing photographs and recreations and translations and transcriptions."
There's another reason for hope: some of Lahaina's historic sites, like the Waiola cemetery (also known as Waineʻe), one of Hawaii's first Christian cemeteries, remains mostly intact. It's the burial ground of important historical figures including Queen Keopuolani, the first Hawaiian baptized as a Protestant, and King Kaumuali'i, the last king of Kauai.
"The flag pole that is at the cemetery, the flag itself, was completely untouched in the midst of all of the damage," Lee-Greig said in the meeting. But the Wailoa church right next door was burned to the ground.
When an extreme event like a wildfire burns through a place, it's not just culturally meaningful physical structures that are at risk. The same goes for the rituals and traditions connected to those places.
One example is the annual Emma Farden Sharpe Hula Festival, which usually takes place under the banyan tree in downtown Lahaina, a local landmark that was badly burned. Organizer Daryl Fujiwara said he had intended to cancel the 2023 festival, because he thought it might be too much for the dancers.
"A lot of dancers in these hula schools, they're all facing so many hardships," he said. "A lot of them lost their homes."
But Fujiwara said the performers still wanted to go ahead. So he pivoted to producing the event virtually, on Facebook.
The performers this year danced indoors in front of a backdrop of white sheets and floral arrangements instead of under the tree. It wasn't the same. But Fujiwara said that because of the plundering and negligence of colonial powers, Hawaiians have learned to deal with the loss of many important historic and sacred sites.
"Even though we've lost those places, they still remain in our stories, in our songs and our dances," Fujiwara said. "And that's how we have been able to survive."
Reposted from Security Managment Magazine
Ask anyone in any industry about their company’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives, and chances are that you will get a healthy dose of cynicism in return, along with a vague description of the program and how it is annually required for everyone. Ask them what DE&I means to them personally, and you will get a variety of answers that center around that person’s unique interpretation of DE&I, which can be quite varied based on their own experiences in life—not necessarily what was presented in their training.
After the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect on-site workforces, many DE&I and organizational culture initiatives that were gaining steam dropped off before they could be fully implemented. Programs and initiatives are beginning to make a comeback, but the momentum is slow to build. But what about functions like security that don’t always have the option to work remotely or hybrid? How can DE&I improve security organizations’ postures, revenues, and mission?
If you look at these programs through the lens of value, you will begin to see the benefits such programs can bring to your organization. The purpose of these programs is to promote a workplace culture where individuals feel valued, respected, and supported regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or other personal characteristics.
History is replete with DE&I initiatives that moved society into a more inclusive environment, even if they were not known as “DE&I” programs at the time: women’s suffrage, the U.S. Civil Rights Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act are all examples of DE&I programs that were established to be inclusive of all people, not just a few.
However, gender diversity in some occupations didn’t really begin to take hold until the 1970s and 80s. Women in security or law enforcement were mostly relegated to administrative roles, and very few served in posts or positions that were dominated by white males.
When Lisa Terry, CPP, CHPA, chief development officer at Vistelar, LLC, started her law enforcement career in 1978, she understood that she was fighting an uphill battle for acceptance.
“I knew that I was going to have to work twice as hard in a male-dominated field,” says Terry. “I genuinely believed that to be treated better, I had to work harder to fit in, adjust to and please others, often at the expense of my well-being.”
While the security industry has taken steps to become more welcoming and inclusive of a variety of professionals since then, fitting into a culture where you feel isolated has always been a challenge. The shift to remote work eroded inclusion further by reinforcing existing exclusive behavior, conscious and unconscious biases, and undermining workplace culture. People found themselves having to work harder to fit in from a remote environment—again at the expense of their well-being and mental health. Meanwhile, security personnel who could not work remotely found themselves immersed in a volatile and rapidly changing environment at workplaces all over the world, coping with daily temperature checks, frayed nerves, and short tempers.
Expanding and promoting DE&I programs can help to ease these inclusivity gaps by identifying and addressing biases, both conscious and unconscious. The programs also help identify learning needs and gaps—comprehending where you are in your own DE&I journey can often lead to improved mental health outcomes. Understanding by all parties leads to better mental health outcomes in the workplace.
So, what other benefits can DE&I programs have?
Leaders need to understand that getting that top talent means that they are not always going to look, act, or sound like you. It also means that attracting diverse talent should go beyond just looking for people of diverse backgrounds and lifestyles. It begins with rethinking role profiles and job descriptions, moving away from the stereotypes about who fits into a security role based on demographics and experience.
Companies in all industries are trending towards a more diverse workforce. Security organizations that look and sound more like the companies they protect will find a better relationship with that population, leading to more successful conflict resolution, trust in the security team, and a sense of pride.
Diversity in a workplace brings together individuals with unique perspectives and experiences, which can lead to enhanced creativity and innovation. When people with different backgrounds and perspectives collaborate, they can come up with creative solutions to complex problems.
In the 2023 ASIS Foundation study Empowering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Corporate Security, authors Rachel Briggs and Paul Sizemore pointed out that collective wisdom benefits security organizations in a complex and fast-changing threat environment by bringing multiple views to the table. They went on to observe that “homogenous groups do not just share one another’s blind spots; they reinforce them.”
When a team has a diverse group of individuals, it can lead to better decision-making. Individuals from different backgrounds and experiences can offer unique viewpoints and challenge each other's assumptions, leading to better-informed decisions. In a security organization, this can be especially important when making decisions that affect the safety and security of people and assets.
If a team is made up of people who look the same, sound the same, and act the same, anyone who is different than the decision makers will probably not wish to speak up, therefore depriving the decision makers of potential new and improved ideas. Dominant and overbearing leadership always appears to be the common factor for why diverse viewpoints are never put forth. Briggs and Sizemore pointed out that “collective intelligence emerges not just from the knowledge of individuals, but also from the differences between them.”
When employees feel like they belong and are included, they are more engaged in their work and more likely to stay with the organization, according to a 2020 McKinsey study. The study revealed that 83 percent of millennials across all diversity groups were more likely to be engaged in companies with inclusive culture. This is especially important in a security organization, where high turnover can be detrimental to the organization's effectiveness. High turnover leads to more time spent training replacements, overtime costs to fill gaps, and morale issues.
As noted earlier, to move towards increased engagement and retention, there must be a focus on how security organizations are conducting their selection process. Companies in all industries are trending towards a more diverse workforce. Security organizations who look and sound more like the companies they protect will find a better relationship with that population, leading to more successful conflict resolution, trust in the security team, and a sense of pride. These outcomes coupled with increased engagement, lead to more retention of quality employees and top performers which reduce costs.
How is this accomplished? From the top down.
“It has to start at the top,” says Terry. “We must get away from seeing these initiatives as a weakness. We have to continue to educate other security leaders and look to successes.”
She also recommends putting DE&I initiatives in the security organization’s policies, including language about bullying other workers. The study by McKinsey revealed that in 2020, 67 percent of LGBTQ employees polled reported hearing negative comments, slurs, or jokes about themselves or other LGBTQ employees. This behavior, if left unchecked, can lead to cases of employee harassment or allegations of a hostile work environment. These types of cases could lead to a severe reputational risk to your company or organization and affect your ability to provide services within the industry.
On the other hand, employees who feel included and engaged will be more likely to stay in an organization, as well as recommend it to others, increasing your talent pool and potential business.
As we move into a future that includes more DE&I programs, success can be boiled down to three basic ideas: data, outreach, and recruitment.
The data is unmistakable in that more and more organizations are increasing their DE&I initiatives to become more agile. Security is all about risk management, and to do that, we need teams that are mentally agile with the freedom to ask questions and the freedom to learn. We must continue to adapt to an increasingly complex and interconnected world where there are new social challenges to modern society.
Continued outreach to diverse people of different talents and backgrounds can help our security organizations continue to spearhead growth into diverse markets in that interconnected world. That outreach leads to recruitment of top talent that can assist your organization with its ability to foster innovation, creativity, and empathy, but it must be purposeful and continual.
If your security organization can fully embrace and implement the ideals behind DE&I, they will flourish along the journey.
Reposted from Artnet News
A teenage girl from Switzerland vandalized the Colosseum on Friday just weeks after another tourist carved a love note to his girlfriend onto a wall at the famed 1,951-year-old amphitheater.
The Swiss teen, who has not been identified, was on vacation with her family when she began carving her name into a wall, according to local news agency ADN Kronos, which first reported the alleged vandalism on July 15.
The teen girl was caught by an Italian tour guide who notified security at the Colosseum, Italian news agency ANSA reported. The news agency obtained video of the teen about to carve her name.
Italy’s Carabinieri police force was called, according to ADN Kronos. Artnet News has reached out to the Carabinieri for more information.
The girl could face a prison sentence and a fine of about $16,854, the news outlets reported.
Last month, 27-year-old Ivan Dimitrov, a Bulgarian national living in the United Kingdom, was filmed etching “Ivan + Hayley ’23” into a wall of the Colosseum.
Dimitrov looks up at one point, sees he’s being filmed, and smiles as the person recording calls him an “asshole” as he walks away.
In 2014, a 42-year-old Russian tourist was caught carving the letter “K” onto a wall of the Colosseum and was hit with a four-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of about $22,460.
Italy’s Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano condemned Dimitrov’s alleged vandalism but has not yet commented on the latest incident.
“I consider it extremely serious, undignified and a sign of great incivility that a tourist would deface one of the most famous places in the world, the Colosseum, to carve his girlfriend’s name,” Sangiuliano said in a tweet, translated from Italian.
“I hope that whoever carried out this act will be identified and sanctioned according to our laws.”
In April, Sangiuliano announced that the country’s Council of Ministers, the executive arm of the country’s government, approved a law that would impose fines beginning at around $11,221 and going as high as about $67,328 for those who vandalize art and cultural sites.
“Attacks on monuments and art sites produce economic damage to the community,” Sangiuliano said in a statement at the time.
“Cleaning up requires the intervention of highly specialized personnel and the use of very expensive machinery. Those who carry out these acts must also assume financial responsibility.
Museums and galleries in Scotland must pay all of their workers at least the real Living Wage to apply for grants, following changes to funding criteria introduced by Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS).
The funding and development body is required to align its criteria to the Scottish Government’s Fair Work First policy, which applies to grants and public contracts being awarded by and across the public sector. Fair Work is also a priority area in MGS's recently launched strategy for 2023-30.
On 1 July, MGS introduced two elements of the government’s guidelines on fair working practices: that all workers within an organisation must receive at least real Living Wage, which is currently £10.90 per hour; and that all workers are to be provided with appropriate channels for effective voice.
Applicants will also need to demonstrate their awareness of, and commitment to, Fair Work principles by including a supporting statement on their website.
The government’s full list of Fair Work principles is:
MGS has produced a Fair Work Resources for Employers page to help museums find support and guidance towards becoming a Fair Work employer. It encourages museums to seek accreditation from the Living Wage Foundation.
Museums Journal understands that there is concern about this blanket approach, with some organisations warning that the changes may prove unaffordable for them. There have been calls for the criteria to be broadened to recognise organisations that are working towards the Living Wage.
In an update to members, MGS grants manager Catherine Myles said: “We recognise that many museums have been on the Fair Work journey for several years now as we work towards the ambition of being a fair paid sector, however for others this may feel new and unfamiliar. If you are at all unsure about these requirements we encourage you to contact us to discuss your own situation and we will provide you with support and guidance to understand how these requirements may affect your organisation.”
The changes echo the Museums Association’s recent Salary Research and Recommendations, which stipulate that all employees and freelancers should be paid the Living Wage as a minimum.
Today’s video management, access control, and intrusion detection systems are incredibly complex and provide unique challenges in product selection, networking, maintenance, and support. Features within these systems are extremely functional and may also provide some of the greatest opportunities to demonstrate value to one’s organization. But it can be a double-edged sword—if one chooses poorly or networks incorrectly, the very tools used to help secure a facility may also render it vulnerable and invite risk. Hence, strict technical standards are an absolute must for any organization.
This is the fourth in a five-part series on security governance. The first article, “Setting the Bar for Strong Governance in Security Management,” makes the case for establishing a governance program within your organization’s security department. The second article, “For Effective Governance, Start with Why,” implores you to ask yourself why you need a security program in the first place and then provides an outline for your program standards as to how you can communicate your why to the rest of the organization. The third article, “The How of Security Governance: Procedures Provide Support,”makes the case for tactical-level guidance on completing the most common tasks at your sites.
Technology is the application of knowledge for achieving practical goals in a reproducible way. The word can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible tools like utensils or machines, and intangible ones like software. In the physical security world, complex modern technology includes video management, access control, and intrusion detection systems and the less complex like barriers, lighting, locks, keys, glazing, and signage. For all of this, we must provide our teams guidance in the selection, application, installation, integration, operation, protection, and maintenance of our security tools. These are our technical security standards—the third leg of our fundamental security governance products.
“Technical security standards provide a strategic vision for an organization as to how they want to employ tools in the safeguarding of their assets,” says Wade Pinnell, CPP, CEO of Virtual Software Equipment and Consulting (VSEC), a technical security consultancy specializing in hospitality and manufacturing security systems. “If employed and integrated properly, these systems not only safeguard against loss, but enhance business objectives and can even help to exploit opportunities, giving organizations market advantages.
“Today’s cameras, employing analytics, can do things like count people, capture demographic information, discern humans from animals, trigger alarms, ‘see’ heat before there’s even a wisp of smoke, and spot anomalies, going far beyond traditional security applications,” he continues. “These are just some of the value-adds video management systems can deliver today. Finally, technical standards consolidate brand usage and therein present economic advantages in negotiating enterprise pricing with manufacturers. This can realistically generate savings of 15 percent to 25 percent in hardware/software purchases.”
Like your operations procedures, technical standards will be based upon established industry guidelines, best practices, and standards from organizations like ISO, ANSI, ASIS, and NIST, providing legal protections for our teams and organizations. And also like your operations procedures, this product should establish a baseline from which regional and area guidance can be created and better aligned—more prescriptive—with business units, countries, facilities, and cultures.
But technical security standardization can provide significant economic advantages as well. By selecting one or a limited range of products for your enterprise, you can become masters of support rather than generalists with a wider range of products.
Further, you can negotiate for economies of scale. For example, I’ve found that by selecting just three options of camera manufacturers at the good, better, and best levels, discounts upwards of 40 percent can sometimes be negotiated with manufacturers. When committing to just one access control or video management system, even greater discounts may exist. Using cloud-based servers may enable even more savings and provide more security.
Finally, one may avoid the potential pitfalls of selecting poor products which may actually place your organization at risk.
“The proper installation and integration of systems is critical to a system's integrity,” Pinnell says. “More than once I’ve had cases in which clients said their systems were networked correctly and safe. However, when inspected, they were completely vulnerable and exposed. You’re only one network switch port away from being completely open to the world.”
So, what might a technical security standard product look like? This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it might include the following:
Guidance in the selection, implementation, and management of less complex, non-electronic physical security controls (e.g., doors, locks and keys, lighting, parking and traffic control, signage, gates, bollards, and barriers).
The role security operations centers serve at the regional and global levels (e.g., technical objectives, layouts and systems, staffing, operations and procedures).
Strategic and operational guidance for supporting, and sunsetting new and legacy systems.
This may include more details on approved manufacturers, technology partners, and devices, fee schedules, project estimation tools, service bulletins, basic how-to user guides, and links to technical manuals.
Given the persistent developments in technology and threats to exploit these systems, enlisting the help of a technical security consultant or specialist to produce and update this document may be crucial. Like with all of your governance products, submit this for legal review and consider creating a website where the latest copy will reside and be available to your global teammates, contracted partners, and service providers.
With technical standards established, your foundational governance products will be complete, but without enforcement, they’re nothing more than good ideas. The next step in evolution is the creation of a security audit program, and beyond that, maturity modeling. Those are the topics of our next and final article in this series.
Reposted from ArtNet News
During the 10 years he spent working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, author Patrick Bringley developed a profound, in-depth appreciation for the vast art and antiquity collection at one of the largest and most popular museums in the world. He made the most of his unrestricted access to immerse himself in art ranging from Greek and Roman antiquities, Chinese silk paintings, and Old Masters, to American art, Impressionist and modern, postwar, and contemporary works. Whether it was the experience of standing in awe and quiet contemplation in front of the artworks or furthering self-education by delving further into their history and context with supplemental research, he clearly made the most of his time there.
But Bringley didn’t join the Met as an executive, a curator, or even as an art expert. In 2008, he joined the museum as one of the hundreds of blue-jacketed security guards charged with guarding some of the world’s rarest treasures. And he did so after making a leap from a high-profile job at another august city institution, The New Yorker, a move that coincided with the tragic loss of his brother Tom, the older sibling by two years who he admired and looked up to his entire life. It was after Tom’s death from terminal cancer at the young age of just 27, that Bringley felt the need for a life change, and he found it in the hallowed halls of the Met, where the job of guarding the masterpieces helped him to find solace, quiet, and ultimately, healing.
Brinkley writes: “When in June of 2008, Tom died, I applied for the most straightforward job I could think of in the most beautiful place I knew. This time, I arrive at the Met with no thought of moving forward. My heart is full, my heart is breaking, and I badly want to stand still awhile.”
From guarding the art, to watching millions of visitors from around the world (and no shortage of locals) stream up the grand staircase each year, to making friends on a diverse team of about 600 fellow guards, Bringley’s book, All The Beauty In The World: The Metropolitan Museum and Me (Simon & Schuster), is not a tell-all. It is more a love letter to one of the world’s most beloved institutions. As an added bonus, Bringley, who left after a decade, is now leading tours of the Met, with an appendix to his book listing every single artwork referenced in the text to help curious visitors find them inside the museum.
Most Met lovers would agree—and Bringley recounted in vivid detail his first visit to the museum at age 11, on a trip from Chicago with his mother. “I remember a long subway ride to the remote-sounding Upper East Side, and I remember the storybook feel of that neighborhood: doormen in livery, proud stone apartment towers, wide famous avenues—first Park, then Madison, then Fifth… The magical part was that as we drew nearer it kept growing wider and wider, so that even out front by the hot dog carts and the geysering fountains, we were never able to get the entire museum into view. I immediately understood it as a place of impossible breadth.” Bringley’s very solid advice to new and first-time visitors is to just wander. As he pointed out, the development of the museum since its opening in 1880 “expanded in a largely illogical sprawl, appending new wings to old ones in such a way that entire new atmospheres seem to spring up out of nowhere.”
While Bringley entered the job as something of a silent observer, he started to develop close friendships with the tribe of fellow guards he meets over the course of time. As he pointed out: “The glory of so-called unskilled jobs is that people with a fantastic range of skills and backgrounds work them. White-collar jobs cluster people of similar educations and interests… At the Met, I knew guards who have commanded a frigate in the Bay of Bengal, driven a taxi, piloted a commercial airliner, framed houses, farmed, taught kindergarten, walked a beat as a cop, reported a beat for a newspaper, and painted facial features on department store mannequins. They are from five continents and five boroughs… And remarkably, it doesn’t feel disorienting to stand on points with just about any of them. The ice is already broken. We’re wearing the same clothes.”
A factoid that may surprise readers? The Met keeps a tailor in-house just for the guards and their uniforms.
At the height of Bringley’s pre-pandemic guard days, he noted the museum was welcoming almost seven million visitors a year, “a greater attendance than the Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets, Knicks, and Nets combined”—more even than the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building, though less than the Louvre in Paris.
“There is no one way that visitors experience the museum, but there are a few typical ways,” wrote Bringley. These include the “Sightseer, perhaps a dad in his local high school’s windbreaker, camera around his neck, on the hunt for whatever’s most famous… There is the Dinosaur Hunter—a mother with small children who cranes her neck to peer around corners, panicked by each new piece of evidence that this museum only has art.”
Before you mistake any of these encounters for anything resembling an eye-roll, it is immediately apparent in both the introduction of the “types” and elsewhere in the numerous visitor encounters sprinkled liberally throughout the book that Bringley’s guidance is never anything short of curious, kind, non-judgmental, and generous.
Bringley reflected on the Egyptian wing as “a singular place to work. It is a huge section with room enough to display almost all 26,000 objects,” making it the envy of most other curatorial departments. Amid fielding questions about whether or not the artifacts are “real” or observing visitors’ stunned reaction at being informed that some objects are 5,000 years old, he also answers questions from children wanting to know why the mummies are not unwrapped:
“There’s a dead dude in there?”
“Who killed him?”
“Who said anyone killed him?”
“What’s he look like under it?”
They prompt the author to ruminate on the mummification practice itself. He wrote: “A minute later they bolt from the room, and I’m left behind to reflect on how ugly the mummifying impulse was, what a failure, what a brazen, feeble denial of a fundamental truth. The body doesn’t make it. Believe all you want that some piece of a person is immortal, but a significant part is mortal, inescapably, and mad science will not stop it from breaking down.”
While the wealth of knockout, up-close, and personal encounters with art described in the book are too many to count, one that stands out is Brinkley’s description of Florentine painter Bernardo Daddi’s Crucifixion, in which the body of Christ is “dignified but limp; a gentle elegance in his bearing suggests that he suffered bravely,” as Mary and John sit reflectively on the ground.
“An artist in the 14th century wouldn’t have dreamed that one day there would be art connoisseurs and textbooks dedicated to something called art history,” he wrote.
While contemplating his own intent at examining the work, and alternately, the artist’s intent in creating it, he concluded: “Much of the greatest art, I find, seeks to remind us of the obvious. This is real is all it says. Take the time to stop and imagine more fully the things you already know. Today my apprehension of the awesome reality of suffering might be as crisp and clear as Daddi’s great painting. But we forget these things. They become less vivid. We have to return as we do to paintings, and face them again.”
QUICK LINKS
ConferenceMembershipTraining & CertificationDonate to IFCPP
TRAINING & EVENTS
1305 Krameria, Unit H-129, Denver, CO 80220 Local: 303.322.9667 Copyright © 1999 International Foundation for Cultural Property Protection. All Rights Reserved
Contact Us
