24 - The Museum Guard Pocket Manual

Abstract

In a museum environment, guards often perform duties that might otherwise be performed by non-security personnel. The rigid temperature and humidity demands require guards to report conditions adverse to the safety of the art. The large number of square feet devoted to a relatively low volume of art in storage or on display means that guards have more space to patrol, more doors to check, and more things to find that “went wrong” than they would in other environments. Too often, training is the forgotten element in the development of a strong and effective force. In this regard, a large format manual that covered important policies and procedures was developed. This Operations and Training Manual was issued to all guards and contained a series of about fifty general orders. Each general order outlined a policy so that, in theory, the force could function and be guided on any of a number of probable situations that could occur. Part two of that manual contained all of the training materials and bulletins that each guard receives in his or her Basic and Roll Call training sessions. However, this format was not perfect, and so a small format pocket manual was prepared. It contains specific instructions for manning each specific post. In addition, the pocket manual contains other information that the guard needs while on post.