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(This article appeared in the December 2000 issue of Security.)
The National Archives in Washington, DC gets thousands of visitors each year who come to the facility to conduct research. While they had always tracked the researchers, they were recently faced with a challenge: The system they had in place with not Y2K compliant.
The National Archives turned to Kipp Visual & Security Systems, a Baltimore-based distributor, for help. Kipp Visual in turn worked with one of their manufacturer partners, IDenticard, Lancaster, Pa., to develop a system that would function similarly to the existing system at the National Archives.
"It's not significantly different in concept," says Eric Chaskes, archivist, who was very involved in the process of developing the system. "The system we had before was custom-written and rather buggy. There are some things that the [new] IDentiPASS system does better, such as tracking all the transactions."
Tracking, Badging Requirement
"We wanted a system with a security card that could track transactions at designated points," Chaskes says. "We also wanted a card with a magnetic stripe rather than a bar code" (which their old system used).
"Most of our other requirements were on the question of issuing badges. We had some unique considerations. We wanted to continue having people enter their own information into the computer, then have someone issue the badge. That posed some challenges and modifications."
Marc Hess, CEO, Kipp Visual adds: "This was definitely the largest configuration we've done in terms of the amount of workstations required in the system. Between the badging stations and the badging / access stations, there are about 18 stations within the facility on the network. So it's a huge network system. The capabilities have always existed within the IDenticard system to do this, but it's never been used to this extent and that was one of the big challenges we had."
Chaskes adds, "We don't require any advance notification to do research. People come in and there are three computers where they can sit down and type in their information, such as name, address and why they are here."
How it Works
After they enter their information and save it, they then go to the badging station, "where their record is brought up and all that has to be done is picture taking and printing of the badge," Hess adds. "The idea was so they could have five or 10 people come in at a time and they don't have to have people at a desk to put in all this data."
Once the researcher has the card, which is good for three years, they then present it to a guard when they want to enter a certain room. The guard swipes the card, Chaskes explains.
"This is not a traditional access control system," Hess adds. "We're using an access control badging system to control entry into their research rooms. So the actual building control is not through here, it's just the research center we control. What they were looking for was record keeping of who goes into each different area for research.
"The two systems we're using for that are the IDenticard IVIS Plus 2000, which is the digital badging system. Then we have that interfaced to the IDentiPASS access control system, which is interfacing to the card readers and collecting the data for report generation."
According to Chaskes, reaction to the new system has been overwhelmingly positive. "The cards look very nice and most people are excited to get it."
Future Plans
"Ultimately we want to expand the system to buildings around the country," Chaskes says. The facility is currently working on a database glitch unrelated to the IDentiPASS system, he says. "We are not able yet to send information to other buildings at an acceptable rate of speed," he says. "But we're trying to come up with ways to work around the speed problem." Once that happens, the system could be expanded to approximately 25 buildings around the country.
"Ultimately, if this works out well, this could give researchers the capability to carry one card to use in different centers around the country," Hess says.
Chase envisions future changes in technology as well. "We hope one day to have researchers carry smart cards," he says.
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