This has been in my mind for a few days and I have got to get it off my chest.
I have read the back-and-forth comments about security in libraries with some concern. It is very easy to assume that victimized libraries could be more careful in protecting their patrimony. I fear both sides may be more glib than they realize. I often think that the people who criticize library security do not realize what the security would entail--not money for high-tech security (cameras with tapes, sensors, re-designed spaces, etc.), but something quite different and much more intrusive. Librarians (and researchers, too) who counter with insistence on access to collections are correct, but I think their response is too glib.
I have first hand experience (as a user) of very intrusive (and effective) library security and, while I doubt it will be breached by thieves posing as researchers, it was a major pain in the neck. All personal belongings were checked, all notes and note-taking devices were examined before and after, and loose clothing or jackets might be examined by staff if there were questions. Before a folder of materials (or a book or manuscript or photograph) was handed to you, it was examined item-by-item (or leaf-by-leaf) by a staff member who noted the quantity in a log with additional notes about tears, gaps and damage. I was handed the item and not allowed to leave my desk. When I finished, I summoned a staff member who took the folder but would not buzz me out of the room until each item in the folder was counted and checked against the log book.
Coming in, the process of retrieval and counting took only about 15 minutes since it was "quiet." (My credentials were examined previously, which took an additional 5 or so minutes of phoning the reference to confirm my identity, but then I was known to the curator and staff.) Leaving, the check-out process took about 20-25 minutes. There was an additional delay of having me buzzed out the door since another reader needed to be checked out. If you are a researcher checking a single citation (as I was), I spent nearly three-quarters of an hour on these security matters. The institution in question claims never to have been hit by thieves, but I have also had researchers complain to me about these time consuming procedures: for example, one pre-eminent Civil War scholar complained that at the National Archives he had been handed a big box without delays--why couldn't this other library give him more consideration? (I had to chuckle to myself about a liberal scholar expecting separate but unequal treatment in a reading room.)
These procedures really do impede access to collections. And there other issues as well. Imagine the staff time required to maintain these practices. Imagine the cost of staffing such a reading room to enable researchers to come and go quickly. Where will the staff time (and the money) come from? If you implement these policies, imagine the politics when researchers try to circumvent the rules. In an academic library, imagine trying to defend yourself to the head of the library or to an irate dean or president who controls your budget. (And when the old dean/president/director retires, you need to "educate" the new boss all over again.) The ideal solution is to adopt security as that described above but can it be done? I think the problem is that there are no EASY solutions and someone's ox will always be gored.
So much security (and, I might add, so much collecting and selling) seems to be coming with a heavy dose of wishful thinking: that all researchers and staff are honest, that we will be able to do our work quickly without slow-downs, that we can continue to get extraordinary access to collections without paying for them.
Obviously, these are my own thoughts, not those of any employer or client with whom I work or have worked.
Paul W. Romaine
Independent library consultant (inter alia)
romaine@pipeline.com