Guarding Valuables
Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music finds a way to protect audio equipment
- By Wendy Bowman
- July 01, 2016
BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC IS HOME TO A LOT OF
TALENTED MUSICIANS, BUT ALSO TO A VARIETY OF
EXPENSIVE AUDIO EQUIPMENT. RELATIVELY SMALL
MICROPHONES WORTH MORE THAN $50,000 EACH,
FOR EXAMPLE, ARE NOT UNCOMMON. TO PUT AN END
TO THEFT AND OTHER ISSUES THAT CAME ALONG WITH
STORING EQUIPMENT IN TRADITIONAL CABINETS WITH
LOCKS AND KEYS, THE COLLEGE RECENTLY DEPLOYED
HES K100 WIRELESS CABINET LOCKS WITH APERIO
TECHNOLOGY.
Nick Costa, technical operations manager at Berklee, said that the
search for a new solution began after cabinets with traditional locks
and keys were broken into numerous times.
“We knew it wasn’t a good long-term solution,” Costa said. “So we
began researching wireless solutions that would allow us to track
access to the cabinets where we stored valuable school equipment.”
After searching the market, the HES K100 emerged as the clear
choice. The four initial HES locks Berklee purchased are installed in
music studios and used on cabinets that store microphones, headsets
and other expensive equipment. Rather than issuing keys at the beginning
of each term, access rights are programmed onto cards that store
data regarding which students have access to which cabinets during
which terms. When the terms end, the access does as well.
“The ability to control access at a very specific level is critical for a
school like ours,” Costa said. “We don’t have a ton of space, being in a city
setting, so classrooms get used for multiple purposes. Having students
use the same room but different equipment is a common occurrence.”
The initial deployment of the HES K100 cabinet locks with Aperio
technology at Berklee brought together the IT department, locksmiths,
faculty and staff, all of whom have seen the importance, and benefits,
of the project.
“They are all big supporters of the initiative,” Costa said. “Since we
deployed the cabinet locks, we have had zero property loss in the areas
where we’ve installed the locks.”
Costa expects the success of the initial deployment to help keep the
long-range plan moving forward. The goal is to completely phase out
keys for faculty by installing HES locks in every classroom. Since it will
eliminate the cumbersome process of keeping track of all the keys
issued to adjunct faculty, he expects the conversion
to be as beneficial as the initial deployment.
“Overall, our decision to move to electronic
access control with Aperio technology has been a
great investment for our campus,” Costa said.
This article originally appeared in the July 2016 issue of Campus Security Today.
About the Author
Wendy Bowman is the director of marketing communications at Securitron/ASSA ABLOY.