Streamlined security at Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine

Feb 1, 2006 12:00 PM, BY KATE HENRY

THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA'S COLLEGE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE recently made the switch to digital video recording, keeping installation, monitoring and maintenance of the system in-house.

The Gainesville college is the state's only veterinary school. It graduated its first class in 1980 and today has significant growth plans for the future. The bustling campus hosts numerous facilities, housing competitive academic programs for veterinary and graduate students, biomedical research labs and animal hospitals.

Protecting those facilities and the assets housed therein — as well as the life safety of the campus' faculty, students, staff and visitors — is the responsibility of the College's Safety and Security Department. The college is “dedicated to advancing animal, human and environmental health,” and the safety and security department is dedicated to advancing the campus' security mission. “Even with 250,000 square feet under roof, there are few security problems here because our department has always been proactive in taking measures to increase the security of our facilities,” says David E. John, senior electronic technician with the department.

John says the department set out to upgrade its video monitoring capabilities in May 2005, seeking to implement digital video recorders as the first phase of an ongoing enhancement of the school's security technology. “Security issues of concern to the college are certainly the life safety of students, faculty, staff and personnel. The college is conscious of keeping people safe,” John says. “But further, given the research facilities and labs and hospitals on campus, loss prevention is also a key goal.” John adds that one of his department's responsibilities is to protect the college's investments in its technological and intellectual property.

When John set out to make the switch to digital recording, it was with the goal in mind of realizing specific monitoring capabilities. “Previously, we had time-lapse recorders in place, which were limited to black-and-white image capture and were time-consuming in terms of image retrieval,” he says. “We wanted new digital recorders that could be networked, accessed via the Internet and allowed room for growth as the college's security needs expand in the future.”

John says the college chose Mitsubishi DX-TL5000U DVRs because of their feature set and ability to provide high-quality imaging. “The units can be cascaded together or sequentially configured, which gives us the ability to grow to a larger monitoring system as our needs grow,” he explains. With the Mitsubishi DVRs, video monitoring is handled in-house, and multiple screenshots can be displayed on a 32-inch monitor housed in the security department. The recorders do their work around the clock, and images can be retrieved and scrutinized instantly.

A challenge to the procurement process, however, was obtaining the DVRs while staying on budget. John credits Systems Depot, Winter Park, Fla., the distributor from which the college purchased the recorders, as well as Mitsubishi, for being responsive to the college's needs and helping the department stay on track with its budget.

Five recorders are now up and running, monitoring interior and exterior locations throughout the College of Veterinary Medicine campus, such as building entrances, reception areas, key spaces throughout research labs, hospitals, student facilities and parking lots. John says the encrypted DVD writing capability, color monitoring, fast image retrieval and Web accessibility provided by the recorders have already proven a boon to the campus' security. “Administrators or staff with access privileges can dial in to the system and access video of their areas of responsibility via computer on an as-needed basis,” John says.

John chose not to integrate the recorders, which monitor nearly 70 cameras, with the college's other physical security measures. A Northern Computers (now Honeywell) system provides access control to buildings, and fire and life safety devices are strategically located throughout the campus. John makes the case that not integrating the recorders streamlines ease of use and maintenance of the various fire and security systems.

“We are now seeing dramatically improved video recording quality and increased ease of use,” John says. “It used to be time-intensive to retrieve video images, but to date, we have successfully resolved two incidents specifically thanks to the new recorders — that likely would have gone unresolved prior to the installation.”

With this first phase of the enhancement to the College of Veterinary Medicine's security systems smoothly up and running, the college is poised to expand its security measures into current and planned construction of new campus buildings as needs dictate.

---

ABOUT THE COMPANIES

For information, circle the Reader Service number (listed below) or visit securitysolutions.com

Honeywell (Northern Computers)	48
Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America	49
Systems Depot	50

Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

This month in Access Control

• Opening Up About Door Closers
• An Enterprise Approach
• The Framework For Open Systems
• On A Higher Plane
• More from April's issue