A Winning Solution

Los Angeles sports museum protects priceless memorabilia with D-Link solution

• By Megan Weadock
• Dec 01, 2009

As sports coaches throughout history have said, “There’s no ‘I’ in team.”

That old adage is true in the security world as well. Sometimes it takes a collaboration to finally get a security system right.

At the Sports Museum of Los Angeles, the IT department teamed up with D-Link -- a designer, developer and manufacturer of networking, broadband, digital electronics, voice, data and video communications solutions -- to upgrade their surveillance system in order to protect some of sports’ most precious mementos.

Remembering the Good Old Days

The Sports Museum of Los Angeles is the largest known private collection of iconic sports artifacts, collectibles and memorabilia in the United States. The compilation features about 10,000 pieces of memorabilia, including Babe Ruth’s record-breaking home run bat, Lou Gehrig’s uniform jacket and a ball hit by Joe DiMaggio during his historic 56-game hitting streak. The permanent collections cover a multitude of sports, from baseball, basketball, football and tennis to boxing, horse racing, biking, golf and swimming.

The museum’s 30 galleries include a huge range of topics, from the popular -- like the Gallery of Baseballs, the Boston Red Sox and How Pro Football Began -- to the obscure, such as the Gallery of Vintage Bicycles. But regardless of your sport of choice, no doubt there’s something to catch your interest.

According to the museum’s Web site, the collection is valued at more than $30 million, with his priciest pieces being a baseball card worth more than $2 million and a uniform Babe Ruth wore in Japan valued in the millions. With such a valuable collection at stake, clearly security is top of mind for the museum’s IT network operations manager, Sal Martinez.

Martinez wanted to transition the facility’s surveillance capabilities from an old CCD system to the most sophisticated but affordable surveillance system he could find. It was important that the solution would allow museum security guards to effectively monitor visitors, the artifacts, exit doors and public areas, while serving as a visible deterrent to theft and vandalism. And the timing was right to make a major change.

“The museum was dynamically changing with construction and new memorabilia,” Martinez said. “We needed a system that can expand quickly and efficiently.”

Protecting History

 Martinez knew that the museum’s security budget was tight, but certain features could not be sacrificed. The facility absolutely needed a system with high video quality and clarity, easy-to-use management software, motion detection to conserve resources when not in use, sound capture, digital zoom and the ability to record at a lower resolution to save valuable disk space.

The affordable price, as well as the ease of installation and management, offered by D-Link caught Martinez’s attention right away. The company’s two-way audio Internet cameras and PoE adapters were just what the museum needed.

Working with Computer 1 Products of America, a D-Link reseller in South El Monte, Calif., Martinez was able to specify a system that offered the features he needed at a price that fit the museum’s budget.

“We shopped around and saw demonstrations of different cameras from other manufacturers,” he said in a press release. “From an implementation and cost perspective, D-Link had the upper edge.”

In the end, the museum wound up with 88 D-Link two-way audio Internet cameras and the same number of D-Link PoE adapters.

The combination helps the staff keep an eye on every angle of the 32,000-squarefoot structure.

“D-Link’s D-ViewCam software that is bundled with the cameras is priceless,” Martinez said. “We installed the system in about a week. Everything works great.”

Martinez said he and the rest of the staff have been more than happy with the system since the installation was completed.

“So far, it’s exceeded all expectations,” he said. “Learning this system was fast, and training our users to operate the security console was quick and easy.”