Housed within four buildings on the main campus of the University in the west end of Glasgow, The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery has highly prized collections of archaeology, historical artefacts, cultural treasures and truly breathtaking works of art including several collections by James McNeill Whistler and the majority of the watercolours of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

The Museum has had a basic CCTV system for around 20 years but the poor picture quality and reliance on unreliable tape recordings was proving a concern. As Dave Russ, Facilities Technician for the Museum explains, “We need something that would provide better coverage but without being too intrusive, complex to operate or expensive.”

The gallery area was the most pressing concern due to the high value items on display, yet the museum was keen to avoid having to place hundreds of cameras everywhere, especially in rooms with listed building status. However, with over 22,000 sq/f of gallery space to protect, the Museum issued an open tender to any interested CCTV supplier.

“Before the tender, we had looked at Mobotix as a potential solution and we were extremely pleased when Proxis replied back with a quote that offered more coverage, with better quality using less cameras than we had originally planned for,” explains Russ, “The quote was also one of the most competitive and included the cameras, storage, running all the networking cable, setting up the software and providing us with training on the monitoring station.”

After evaluating 33 separate responses from CCTV vendors, The Museum selected the only Mobotix partner to respond. At a quote of less than £24,000 including VAT, Proxis UK utilised the power of the Mobotix hemispheric technology to use a single camera to cover entire rooms or intersections where other systems had recommended two or three separate cameras. In total, Proxis used just 18 Mobotix cameras to provide coverage of every single public accessible space across the entire gallery.

Each security camera uses power over ethernet capability that allows much simpler single cabling over narrow Cat5. For added security, the entire installation uses an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) backup which can keep the system recording for up to an hour in the event of power failure.

“The Proxis guys installed everything in about a week and took particular care working in some of our more sensitive rooms” explains Russ, “The CCTV images are displayed on a screen at reception and in my office and we have had 100% reliability since it went in.”

Footage is stored on a RAID enabled NAS device and provides over a month of recordings in mega pixel quality. “Proxis provided the system for less than many of the rival analogue systems we were offered and did a first rate job” Russ comments, “The cameras are also very discreet and look just like smoke detectors and blend into the décor of the gallery – all-in-all – we are very pleased indeed.” Russ concludes.