I would like to add my two cents worth to this subject.

Here at the Health Sciences Center Library at the University of New
Mexico, we have found that tattletaping only keeps honest people honest.
We have been plagued with a series of thefts which we are struggling to
combat at this time.  Entire articles in many of our nursing journals
have been ripped out...A gang of book theives has been "slashing out
books and removing the tattletape so they can take them out of the
library without any problems.  Both have resulted in double and triple
tattletaping items as well as placing those items regarded as high risk
within our reserve book collection.

This year I have created a wish list of things I would like to see....If
the Federal Government can print money with special threads in it, why
can't someone create a paper stock that has magnetic fibers in it.  That
way every PAGE could become sensitized and would stop the thieves
cold...at least for a short while.

Cory J. Meyer
Head, Serials/Government Documents              cmeyer@biblio.unm.edu
University of New Mexico
Health Sciences Center Library
Albuquerque, NM  87131-5686

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On Wed, 7 Feb 1996, Craig Fairley wrote:

  <snip>

> Another point.  Does all this fuss and bother (and cost!) with security
> systems really stop theft?  The security staff at the same library found
> that they were only stopping 6 or 7 people per year with libray materials
> (out of 1.4 million visitors) and most of them were honest mistakes.  The
> security system did trigger quite regularly, but it was mostly by books from
> other libraries.  More frequently, serials are subject to lost pages and
> nobody can secure *every* page.  Perhaps the cost of your security tags
> could be better spent replacing those few lost issues.

  <remainder of quoted text deleted. -ed.>