Disaster planning and emergency preparedness.

Disasters are part of everyday life. They vary from small to very big. They can act on a personal level or affect whole communities. They have in common that they are mostly unexpected and cause loss and grief. The extent of damage depends of course on the severity of the disaster, but also on how well prepared one is to assess, manage and contain the event.

Libraries, archives and museums are as well susceptible to disaster as other buildings and structures. Because of their specific function in our society specific measures should be taken to preserve the content of these institutions. Archives for example, are not stuffy storerooms for old discarded paper. In fact an archive harbours the collective memory of a community, be it a town, a state, a government or even a humble society. Take this away and a whole community might be cut off of its roots, loose its collective identity and history and even start to malfunction because the lack of necessary information. Besides practical knowledge for all kinds of academic fields, even sciences, library, archive and museum assets represent an historical value and for special collections even a financial value. Therefore disaster planning and emergency preparedness are a necessity for these institutions

Disasters

Disasters can have different origins. They can be categorized in

• Natural disasters as earthquakes, hurricanes, storms, floods, fire and so on
• Technical disasters as gas- and other leaks, explosion, short-circuit, fire, plane and other crashes and so on
• Environmental disasters as acute industrial accidents, tanker accident and so on
• Disasters by human intervention as war, terrorism, vandalism, damage caused by water from extinguishing fires and others

Disasters are always inconvenient. They often occur when nobody is around, at night, in weekend, in holiday season. To minimize their impact it is therefore very important to have thought out beforehand which disasters could be likely to occur and when they happen, what short- and long-term measures should be taken.

Disaster planning

Disaster planning needs a lot of thinking. Since emergency preparedness costs money and funding is mostly limited, it is imperative to have one’s priorities right

Planning in advance what to do when disaster strikes, is not simple. The efficiency of disaster planning depends amongst others upon

• Reliability of available information
• Reliability of available resources
• Reliability of available people, public and private services

Key information to disaster planning is:

• Inventory of the collections, their location and priorities
• Assessment of building(s) and housing
• Assessment of possible disasters
• Institutional organisation
• Availability of resources
• Available help from public services or private institutions

Key procedures for disaster planning are:

• Gathering key information and assessment
• Developing disaster procedures
• Implementation of disaster procedures
• Coordination with public authorities
• Monitoring and detection of possible disasters
• Management of resources and personnel
• Assessing and updating current changes and information

Key procedures when disaster hits are:

• Execute disaster procedures in coordination with public authorities and services
• Assessment of damage to building(s) and collections
• Structural protection of the building
• Protection of collections in situ
• Relocation of collection
• Protection of collections ex situ
• Long-term planning for rescuing collections and building

What can we do for you?

We can help you with disaster planning specific to your institution.

• Assessment of building(s) and housing
• Assessment of risks
• Developing disaster procedures
• Contacts with authorities, public services, industry,
• Purchase of necessary goods and materials
• Implementing disaster procedures
• Assessing disaster procedures

For our information we rely on following sources:

• Internal institutional information
• Interviews with appropriate sources
• Public services and authorities
• External advisers
• Industry
• Literature and interne