Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections September 2019 - 12

Society Reports
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myFOSSIL (offshoot of iDigBio)

MUSEUM-L

Facebook - Mineral Community

PaleoNet

It was realized that there would be many other listservs for
different communities. Some of these have already been used
to alert the community of thefts.
It was also recommended that we look to the arts community
since they are potentially more experienced in this area. They
have several communication channels including:

Many thieves may know the curators and would therefore
hide any stolen objects at sales. It may also be useful to train
people in the amateur community to identify objects that are
either on a list of stolen items or appear to be museum objects, using characteristic labels, marks, preparation methods,
etc.
Digitization and cataloguing the collections also helps in
monitoring, given that we need to know what we have in
order to know what is taken.

Red Lists

Regular collection audits could help reduce the time between
theft and realization of theft. Carnegie Museum carries out
regular external audits, focusing on 'at risk' collections in
Anthropology, Minerals and Special Library Collections.

Art Loss Register

Future Actions

International Registrar groups

Preventative Actions

It was suggested that engaging the community, who may be a
higher risk, in order to educate them as to the scientific value
of the collections may be useful. Their actions may sometimes be due in part to ignorance.
Heightened security was discussed, including the balance
between acceptable levels of security and either alienating the
community or discouraging use of the collections.
As a minimum, it appeared to be acceptable to ask people to
sign in to use the collections. There are a range of other approaches, including:
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Limiting bags and jackets.

Security passes, ID cards, restricted access to some areas,
etc.

Use of ORCID to create a list of trusted users - rather
than creating a list of risky ones.

Conduct a risk assessment of the collections to identify a)
higher risk objects, and b) higher risk visitors.

The sensitive issue of staff involvement in theft was discussed.

Monitoring

The use of automated alerts was recommended. In the UK,
there are auction alerts on https://www.the-saleroom.com/engb which covers a large number of auction houses. It is also
possible to create alerts on https://www.ebay.com. Facebook
marketplace could also be used to sell stolen items.
Given that a large number of thieves will potentially tweet
about the objects, it would be possible to monitor Twitter using a form of sentiment analysis.

12 * SPNHC Connection

Something has been stolen-what now? This was raised as a
question. How do we handle sharing of information on thefts?
A symposium proposal on this topic with some breakout
groups will be submitted for the 2020 annual SPNHC meeting in Edinburgh. It could include a speaker from law enforcement and would ideally include administrators and
directors.
We really need guidelines for collections. The idea of developing best practices and guidelines was proposed, and this
was seen to fit into the SPNHC Best Practices Committee.
It could take the form of a wiki and there could be a new
SPNHC book chapter.
The latest volume of registation methods in the US may be
relevant here as well. Museum Registration Methods, Fifth
Edition, 2010 AAM, by Rebecca Buck and Jean A. Gilmore
(Editors).
It would be useful for the press and marketing teams of institutes to get together (potentially online) to discuss this issue,
as well as the idea of ensuring that institutes feel comfortable
with reporting thefts in such a way that they would potentially get strong public support rather than any condemnation.
The SPNHC website could potentially have a log-in section
which would be a safe forum space for broader, deeper discussion. This would be for the Web and Social Media Committee to decide.
It may also be possible to look at security firms as sponsors
for SPNHC 2020.
Respectfully submitted,
Paul Mayer and Rob Zschernitz Co-chairs

https://www.orcid.org https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb https://www.ebay.com

Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections September 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections September 2019