Securing Pricelessness

DeliBoy writes "In light of public discussions over security after The Scream was stolen, CSO Online offers an interesting look at museum security. The article details a system designed without budget restrictions intended to secure a painting in a public gallery. Interesting how the consultant balances public access with the need for security, comprised of redundant vibration sensors, overlapping microwave and infrared motion sensors, and an old-fashioned guard. "

Comments

Securing Pricelessness

[Anonymous Coward]

Security - $699

Museum Ticket - $17

Pricelessness - Priceless!

Comment from Article

[hypermike]

Comment from the article, kinda interesting.

My experience with Museum Directors and Curators is they like to show painting without intrusiveness, such as a low rail or rope. One thing that is less intrusive than placing a low rail/rope across the painting, is putting pressure sensors undernest the flooring that are wired in an alarm point system. This can be addressable to the painting name, gallery and location. Which is capable of notifying the control room security staff as well as the guard in the gallery. Example: if the alarm should be activated the camera would automatic override the monitor that the security staff may be looking at to and give immidate location of the painting as well as the orgin of the alarm right on the monitor. It is also possible to have your CCTV system program to follow movement such as room to room. The options are unlimited with today technology.

P.S. Because of todays technology, the trend is now away from breaking after hours into museum-its now armed robbery during public hours.

Alton Malcolm
Chief of Security

Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Put a fake on display, and hide the real one somewhere else.

manic collector

[nbert]

Before anyone comes up with theories about manic collectors being behind of it all - there isn't a single case in history where a stolen painting was found in the basement of an art aficionado. It's mostly about blackmailing the insurance company in charge - it makes sense for them to pay 2 millions to the thief instead of paying 10 millions for the loss.

RFID Chips?

[e9th]

Why not embed them in each artwork? I bet there's a way to do it in most pieces without damaging them.

Sensors at the exits, guards in the parking lot, etc.

If only...

[linuxwrangler]

Sure, if budget is no object...but it is.

I build an alarm system for a major campus art museum back in the day. This was no small affair - we were replacing an old system that never worked well. The old system had vibration sensors on all the panes in the skylights. Unfortunately these sensors were not only unreliable but also worked in groups of a couple dozen sensors for a skylight area and all sensors had to be calibrated together - a very time-consuming process as it involved after-hours work up on a 30-40 foot airlift (with all tools on teathers to protect the art, of course) and also involved removing the diffuser panel under each of the glass panes. Needless to say the skylights were soon unprotected. We replaced these with redundant infrared motion detectors covering all skylight entry points.

Also, the old system had sensors in groups so when an alarm went off (or went bad) you only got a general area of the problem. We replaced this with about 150-200 individual zones. Every door and every motion detector was on a separate zone. In addition, we had a custom made map of the museum with lights for each alarmed door or zone so the central guard could immediately see where the alarm was coming from. Problems were easy to fix - no hunting down a bad switch from among 20 or 30.

We had several pan/zoom cameras with motion-detection capability. A time-lapse recorder ran constantly and sped up to full-speed when motion was detected.

The security room was upgraded with steel walls and bulletproof glass. In addition, being a campus-run museum, a duplicate alarm receiver was installed at police dispatch (no maps, just a printer showing alarms).

The central guard could control all the lighting in the museum and speak to or listen to anywhere in the museum through the intercom/speaker system.

There's more but all-in-all it was a heck of a system and fun to build.

The end result: management cut back all but one of the off-hours guards (the one in the control room) and eventually cut that person as well since, after all, the alarms went to the police station anyway...

What would Munch think of it?

[MasterDirk]

Being Norwegian I was quite interested in this, as were the Norwegian media. The largest Norwegian television-channel, NRK, interviewed a biographer of Munch's. When asked what he supposed Munch would have thought of this theft he replied something like (and I'm translating off the top of my head here):

If it were on one of Munch's better day's he'd probably say something like: "The Geniality of the artwork lies in the Thought and the Act, not in the Result. The Thought caused the Act, and I did it. The work itself is of little importance." But, Munch was a temperemental man so he might have been livid.

And it wasn't exactly the only example of The Scream ("Skrik"), as there are several other versions made by Munch around the world. Still, I wish the thieves all possible good luck in selling the best-known image in the western world without being found out :)