Disaster Preparedness

Part of being the steward of information is being able to plan ahead to prevent the loss of preserved materials in the event of a disaster. While some potential disasters may be detected in time to prepare, not all will be, and that mean having a plan for what to do when the unexpected happens.

Case in point

In March of 1985, during the removal of asbestos from the library, a fire started in the National Library of Australia. The fire department has no knowledge of the special needs of the library, they could not get in touch with most of the staff, and the situation warranted immediate action. The end result was that most of the materials received both smoke and water damage and required extensive cost and effort to repair and replace (Preiss, 1999). How could this damage have been avoided? By having a plan of action prepared in advance.

Requirements of a Disaster Preparedness plan

According to the Society for American Archivists (Pearce-Moses, 2007) in order to be effective, any disaster preparedness plan must have at least these elements, and perhaps a few more depending on any special needs the preservation institution may need for special holdings.

• Have a disaster drill to ensure people know what to do in case of an emergency and to keep that information fresh in their minds.
  


• Update and expand your contact lists for staff, volunteers, and other key organizational contacts (facilities personnel and institutional officials) as well as external services (fire, police, ambulance).


• Review your emergency procedures to check for information that has become outdated and to refresh staff's knowledge of what to do. Make sure that staff have copies – at the office, at home, in their cars, and anywhere else they may need them. The Society of American Archivists has a template for emergency procedures online, available at: www.archivists.org/mayday/MayDayEmergencyProcedures.rtf Or look at Heritage Preservation's (2006) Field Guide to Emergency Response.


• If you have a disaster plan, review it. Flag things to update, and set a deadline to complete that task. This exercise will help keep the plan fresh in your mind, so you won't have to spend time reading the plan when disaster strikes.


• Plan to plan. While it's impossible to develop a complete disaster plan in one day, you can establish benchmarks and deadlines to do this work in a reasonable period of time. The Northeast Document Conservation Center and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) have created dPlan, a free online program to help write a comprehensive disaster plan (www.nedcc.org/welcome/disaster.htm).

Further Reading

Emergency Preparedness from the Library of Congress

Disaster Preparedness and Recovery from the American Library Association

Disaster Preparedness and Response from OCLC



works cited:

Pearce-Moses, R. (2007). The "MayDay" project: promoting disaster preparedness. OCLC systems & services, 23(1), 16-20.

Preiss, L. (1999). Learning from disasters: a decade of experience at the National Library of Australia. International preservation news, (20), 19-.