Re: DVD Theft

Barbara Voss (bvoss@pct.edu)
Mon, 11 Sep 2000 06:22:00 -0700 (PDT)

You inquired about the 3M "donut" product. Although we have not
begun a DVD collection, we started out with the donut stickers on all
music and interactive CDs. They work. Any theft we've experienced,
other than patrons signing these items out and not bothering to return
them, is due to staff error (usually student assisstants) where the
returned items were discharged and reshelved but not re-sensitized.
Once these stickers are placed on the CD they are nearly impossible
to remove after 24 hours. We did, however, have a student try to remove
a sticker, only to give up after lifting 1/4 of the sticker.
Beneath the donut sticker we also place a property label, which is
just a smaller donut sticker and a barcode label. We've found that all
these labels do not interfere with the performance of the CD.
Hope this helps.

Barbara A. Voss
Audiovisual Services Specialist
Pennsylvania College of Technology
One College Avenue
Williamsport PA 17701
Phone: 570 320-2400 1-7774
FAX: 570 327-4503
bvoss@pct.edu

>>> mboedicker@juno.com 09/08/00 04:24PM >>>
Several months back Ellen Druda described the high theft rate of DVDs
in
public libraries. Now I'm experiencing it myself. Our collection is
currently only 40 titles & has only been on the shelves 2 weeks, but
already
3 DVDs have been stolen. (Two more were attempted stolen today, but
staff
watched the suspect like a hawk and he left after stuffing them behind
a
bookcase).

We don't use dummy cases -- the actual discs are in their cases in
open
stacks. For security, we use Kwik cases with magnetic strips, and a
3M
gate. One of the empty Kwik cases (found buried in the stacks) had
its
locking mechanism ripped out as if from heavy-duty pliers.

My questions: does anyone know about a new 3M system, mentioned on the
list
a few months back, that uses small magnetic donut stickers that fit
around
the DVD hub? If anyone has used this system, how effective is it? It
seems
that the best method is attaching security strips directly to the
discs, but
we obviously can't use the straight strips on double-sided DVDs.

We've thought about putting only the cases out for display and keeping
the
discs behind the circ desk. With do that w/ our Rap CDs, because of
their
high theft rate, but we only have about 2 dozen of them. With only 40
DVDs
the same policy is feasible, but 60 more will be added soon, and I
expect
the collection to grow even larger soon after that.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated...

Mike Boedicker
Audiovisual Director/Webmaster
Danville Public Library
319 N. Vermilion
Danville, IL 61832
(217) 477-5223 ext. 123
http://www.danville.lib.il.us