Re-Establishing Key Control as a Security Measure

Abstract

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Library is a large academic institution, maintaining a combined staff of faculty, support staff, graduate assistants, and student employees in excess of 500 individuals. Distributed throughout the Main Library and over twenty departmental libraries across campus, the employees have access to buildings across the campus. A recent interest in improving security on campus resulted in an institutional key audit. This audit found significant discrepancies between the reported number of keys and those that could be accounted for. Unable to afford more expensive technological security options at present, the Library determined that it would work to secure its own facilities through various changes in managing access authorization and key control.

Key Words:

• Physical security
• theft of library materials
• key control
• library staff
• case studies