What do preservation librarians do? Designing appropriate security measures.

Another duty of preservation librarians is to design appropriate security measures for the library collection. Some of these security decisions might include:

• Establishing a policy to categorize materials in the collection into 'categories of risk.' These categories would range from 'high risk' items to 'no risk' items. High risk items are the library's treasures. These items would include materials of high cultural/historical/artistic value and would usually be stored in Special Collections and would not circulate. They would have strict ILL policies associated with them. Many libraries have guidelines to help librarians identify books currently in the general collection that might more appropriately be stored in Special Collections.
• Ensuring that higher risk items on display are housed in environmentally sound conditions.
• Ensuring that policies are in place for the handling of Special Collection items. Such policies might include: identifying/registering users entering the Special Collections area with a driver's license, inspection of users' property before entering or exiting the Special Collections area, restrictions on bulky outerwear and carrying backpacks or other large bags into the Special Collections area, a requirement of the use of gloves while handling materials, restrictions on the use of types of writing utensils within the Special Collections area, restrictions against photocopying, making rubbings or photographing material in Special Collections.
• Ensuring that higher risk items being transported for loan are moved/handled in an appropriate manner and will be secure in the loan location.
• Ensuring that the proper measures are in place to prevent theft or vandalism of items in the general collection (both circulating items and reserve items). Such measures might include camera, security gates, RFID tags etc. They might also include restricting access to non-public areas, such as collection storage areas, collection receiving and processing areas and Special Collections area.
  

Dizard, Robert. (1998). Safe and Sound: Protecting the Collections of the Library of Congress. Library of Congress Information Bulletin 57(6). Available
http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/security.html

American Library Association. (2001). Library Security Guidelines. Available
http://www.ala.org/ala/lama/lamapublications/librarysecurity.cfm