Tag Archives: disaster planning

Disaster planning, May Day, Preservation Week

Preservation Week: What’s in Your Disaster Supply Closet?

I inventory our disaster supplies and make sure people know where to find them every year during Preservation Week and May Day. We have plenty of supplies and equipment in the main library where Conservation is located. A couple years ago we expanded our supplies to include branch libraries and our Collections Services building.

Tote bin with disaster supplies
Branch Library Disaster Tote

While there are many disaster supply lists available online (see below), we found that for our locations we needed customized supply totes. Our totes are stocked with the basics that are needed to respond to small incidents, or start a response while staff await the disaster team’s arrival. Here is a screenshot of our tote contents. I will probably tweak this list going forward, but these totes have proved useful already by all of our branches.

A pdf of a list of supplies in each disaster tote.
Disaster Supply Tote Contents

Our supply cabinet in Collections Services contains the same supplies, plus it has some handy tools and supplies for Conservation when we are on site doing some minor repairs.

Disaster supply cabinet at central campus location.
Supply cabinet in Collections Services
Online Kit Supply Suggestions

There are a lot of resources out there that will advise you on what In our experience we have found that every site has different needs for their disaster kits. These are great places to start your supply list. If you are in a small institution, these can be a quick and easy way to get some supplies in place, then you can add/subtract supplies later to make the kits your own.

AIC Collections Emergency Kits This presentation from 2021 has a variety of handouts.
Harvard Library Recommended Emergency Supplies An extensive list to get you started.
NEDCC Preservation 101 Disaster Supply Checklist A handy printable checklist.
University Products Disaster Recovery Kit An off-the-shelf option with some basic supplies.
Gaylord Be Ready Recovery Kit Another ready-made option.

What’s in your disaster supply kit?

Disaster planning, May Day, Preservation Week

May Day: Time to Update Your Disaster Plan

It’s May Day, the annual celebration that reminds you to spend a few minutes to make sure your cultural heritage organization is ready when a disaster hits. Be it small or large, any kind of emergency in your institution needs a plan.

Do one thing today to make sure you are ready. That can be making sure the phone numbers and URL’s in your plan are updated; you can look at your disaster kit and make sure your have plenty of supplies on hand; or make sure everyone in your organization knows where they can find a copy of the plan.

Disaster Plan Templates

A 2014 follow up survey by IMLS indicated that only 42% of collecting institutions had a disaster plan. While that was almost double from the initial Heritage Health Survey in 2004, that is still an alarming number. It may take more than 15 minutes to write a plan. There are many templates out there, and once you have that draft the subsequent updates are easy.

The Pocket Response Plan (TM) PREP (TM) templates are one of the easiest plans to adopt. These are customizable templates. We have a phone tree on one side, and we wrote First Steps for staff who will be first on the scene.  This plan folds down into a credit card-sized plan that can fit into a small envelope or your wallet. Handy especially when cell phone towers are out due to storms.

The Field Guide to Emergency Response is a handy spiral-bound book that can walk you through creating a disaster plan. This is a great option for smaller organizations, or for people who like a portable paper option for your plan.

Page from Field Guide with list of contacts
Field Guide to Emergency Response

The Risk Evaluation and Planning Program (REPP) is a series of self-study tools. Originally developed by Heritage Preservation with support from an IMLS grant, the project helps you identify your institution’s risks, helps you prioritize risks, and provides many checklists and worksheets. It requires some time to go through the entire set of worksheets, but you will know a lot about your building and risk factors at the end.

Preservation Week, Training, Uncategorized

Preservation Week 2024 is Here!

Preservation Week Panel Discussion on Public Digital Collections of Conservation Treatment Documentation

For Preservation Week 2024, Duke University Libraries will host a virtual panel discussion about Public Digital Collections of Conservation Treatment Documentation on Thursday May 2 at 11 am EDT. Conservation representatives from four institutions (The British Museum, The Preservation Lab (Cincinnati, Ohio), Duke University Libraries, and Stanford Libraries) will share their experiences in building and sharing their institutions’ digital collections of conservation treatment documentation. Panelists will introduce their collections and discuss topics such as digital preservation of treatment records, metadata creation, linking to catalog records and finding aids, and potential privacy and copyright issues.

Duke Library Conservation Documentation Archive webpage header.

 

Details:

Cost is free but registration is required
Thursday, May 2, 2024
11:00 a.m.  to 12:30 pm EDT (Starts at 10:00 Central, 8 am Pacific Daylight Time, 4 pm British Summer Time)
The panel will be recorded and the video will be shared with registered attendees upon request.

Use this link to register for the Zoom:
https://duke.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0ocOipqD4sEtNIKDJnrtY_5Q6886vPK-gw#/registration 

Panelists:

Louisa Burden, Head of Conservation, British Museum
Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer, Book and Paper Conservator, Co-Lab Manager, (she/her)
Erin Hammeke, Senior Conservator for Special Collections, Duke University Libraries (she/they)
Ryan Lieu, Conservation Operations Coordinator, Stanford Libraries (he/him)

Collection Links:

British Museum
Preservation Lab
Duke University Libraries
Stanford Libraries

 

Covid-19, Disaster planning

Working From Home Options for Conservation Labs

21 Comments

As the Covid-19 virus spreads, we have started planning for work that Conservation staff can do at home should we be told to stay off campus. As of this publication we have not been asked to stay home but preservation professionals prepare for the worst and hope for the best. This has been a thought provoking exercise and everyone has contributed to our brainstorming.

We wanted to share what we have drafted to date in case any other labs are in a similar situation. These discussions are also happening on the AIC Community discussion boards and on social media. If you have other ideas, please share in the comments. A big thank you to Kristen St.John at Stanford for the original idea and letting us run with it.

Professional Development

AIC Connecting to Collections webinars (free)

AIC Collections Care self-study options (from free to $89)

AIC self-study courses for Heritage Responders (free)

LinkdIn Learning (aka Lynda) (many academic libraries have free access)

ALCTS YouTube channel (free)

Rare Book School YouTube channel (free)

NEDCC Preservation 101 online self-study (free)

NEDCC Preservation Leaflets (free)

NASIG Youtube Channel (free)

Diversity and Equity in Conservation

AIC/FAIC Youtube Channel (a lot of C2C videos, plus more) (free)

UCLA History of the Book website (free)

Preservation of Plastic Artifacts conference

Syracuse Brodsky Series lectures (PDF transcripts are here) (free)

Documentary Heritage and Preservation Services Youtube page (free)

Image Permanence Institute webinars (free)

CCAHA webinars (free)

Guild of Book Workers Standards Seminars (free for one month!)

Departmental service

Market/vendor research

Technical research

Review/update documentation

Review/update shared workflows (collaborate with other units)

Draft blog posts

Clean out/organize your email and shared drive files

Create futons

Update your contact info in the disaster plan

Cross training with other departments

Professional service

Prepare presentations or work on research papers/posters

Book and Paper Group wiki contributions (Wiki main page)

Add entries of storage solutions to Stash-C

Contribute to Linked Data projects

Host a virtual “unconference” for a focused but informal online discussion on a certain topic. See “How To Run A Free Online Academic Conference: A Workbook (version 0.1)” [credit Sarah Reidell, Penn Libraries]  This could include a department wide virtual meeting to discuss a reading, video, etc.

Skills/Individual Development

Write end of year performance evaluations (it’s that time of year afterall)

Create a book model that you haven’t learned before, or explore sewing structures you haven’t learned before, etc.

Apply for AIC professional membership (Fellow)

Learn to Wash Your Hands

WHO hand washing guide
World Health Organization

 

Johns Hopkins video based on WHO recommendations:

 

Create your own Handwashing Meme.

baby shark washing hands poster
Wash your hands, doo doo do do to do

 

Did you know singing the refrain from the School House Rock Constitution Preamble episode takes just over 20 seconds (the recommended length of time to wash your hands with soap and water).

And the Preamble goes like this:

We the people,
In order to form a more perfect union,
Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
Provide for the common defense,
Promote the general welfare and
Secure the blessings of liberty
To ourselves and our posterity
Do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

For the United States of America…

Disaster planning

May Day: Workers Unite to Update Your Disaster Plan

May Day 2019Happy May Day! Today is not just for dancing around the maypole and celebrating International Workers Day. May Day is also the traditional day to prepare for an emergency in your cultural institution. Are you ready?

Today we invite you to do one thing to prepare for an emergency. If you don’t know where to start, we have some ideas for you below and in previous posts. Put 15 minutes on your calendar and pick one thing to do today.

Do One Thing
  • Download the Heritage Preservation Emergency Response and Salvage Wheel iPhone app on your iPhone. It’s free!
  • If you don’t have a smart phone, buy a copy of the Field Guide to Emergency Response (Supplements here) and the Salvage Wheel (English) (Salvage Wheel in Spanish). Both the book and wheel are on sale. $25 buys you both.  These are excellent resources to help you get your disaster plan together and to respond to any emergency in your collections.
  • Check your disaster kit. Do you need to restock or replace anything? Do you have a pair of warm socks in there? Do your emergency clothes still fit? [trust me…you want to know this ahead of time]
  • Review your emergency phone tree. Are the correct people listed and the phone numbers still correct? If you don’t have a phone tree, make one today. List those critical people who need to be contacted first to get a recovery going. That might include the director, the communications director, the person who has the power to buy supplies on the spot, and a few people who can start the recovery process. It can be as simple as that. The Pocket Response Plan from the Council of State Archivists is a great customizable template and it fits in your pocket.
  • Review your disaster plan. What’s missing or needs updating? Are there people listed that don’t work there anymore? Have the phone numbers changed? You don’t have to make all of those changes today, but make an appointment on your calendar to do it…then DO it!
  • If you are not the one responsible for disaster planning or recovery in your institution, find out who is and ask for a copy of the disaster plan. And remember, if it is in electronic form, be sure to print out a copy and take it home. The internet doesn’t work when the power is out and cell phone towers are down.
  • Find local and state disaster resources. The Alliance for Response is a coordinated effort to provide training and information at the state level. Current networks include North Carolina. The American Institute for Conservation has several emergency planning guides and templates. 
  • And don’t forget you need a plan at home, too. The Red Cross has some good information on how to put a disaster kit together for your home and family and templates in English and Spanish to  help you create a family disaster plan.

It feels good to get that done, doesn’t it? Now, off to the maypole.

Disaster planning

When Monday Turns Meta

mondays be like

We got a lot of rain in the wee hours of Monday morning. Housekeeping alerted the library, and our Preservation Officer and Head of Security sprang into action. The rain found its way from the roof down three levels to the sub basement. Most of the damage was to ceiling tiles, carpeting and equipment.

It could have been worse. Less than 100 collection items got wet. We set up drying stations in the lab and in the fume hood-room and quickly got to work. At one point we ran out of fans and put out a request to our colleagues. Within minutes we had more than enough to get the job done. We had to take only one book to the freezer.

Photo Aug 01, 10 31 53 AM
Rachel setting up drying stations in the fume-hood room.

Unfortunately the water found its way inside the walls of the Digital Production Center, Conservation and our disaster supply closet (oh the irony). Our vendor had to pull the baseboards out and cut holes in the wall to allow air to get inside to dry the drywall.

Photo Aug 01, 10 37 12 AM
Disaster supply closet
Photo Aug 01, 10 31 11 AM
Conservation Lab

We had more rain Tuesday night with additional moisture seeping through the walls. Looks like we will be working undercover for a while until they track down the problem. We’ve had some good practice at this sort of thing, so we know how to be productive even though the lab is a mess.

Photo Aug 01, 10 37 12 AM
Disaster in the disaster supply closet.
Outside our front door.
Outside our front door, before pulling up the carpet.

We are hoping for drier weather in the days to come, but July and August are our rainy seasons so anything can happen. Until then, we will do what we can and stay vigilant for more leaks.

*I realize this video has been said to be staged, but it is still pretty accurate to how we felt on Monday morning.

Disaster planning

It’s Hurricane Preparedness Week!

Hurricane Floyd hits the East coast in 1999. Courtesy Earth Observatory website. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/FloydIntro/

This week is Hurricane Preparedness Week. Don’t be fooled, just because your institution is inland doesn’t mean you can’t be affected by hurricanes. The remnants of large storms can move inland for hundreds or thousands of miles causing flooding and spawning tornadoes. Hurricane Fran hit landfall at Bald Head Island on September 5, 1996. It’s 115 mph winds carried inland and dumped 8.8 inches of rain in Durham, the highest recorded rainfall at the time. You can still see the remnants of the damage of Fran in some areas of Durham.

The 2016 hurricane prediction forecast is for a very active year. If you didn’t review and update your disaster plan on May Day or during Preservation Week, now is the time. At the very least, update your institutional phone tree and make sure your vendor contacts are updated.

If you have more time to devote to preparedness, check out NEDCC’s D-Plan, a free disaster planning site that allows you to customize your plan to your institution. NEDCC also has a good handbook for developing a  community based disaster response called Coordinated Statewide Emergency Preparedness (CoStEP).

We have written before about useful apps for disaster situations. Downloading these now could help you during an emergency situation. There is also a lot of disaster preparedness and recovery information online. Be a good consumer and start with trusted sources such as the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC), the North Carolina Preservation Consortium (NCPC), or the American Institute for Conservation (AIC).

 

 

 

 

Disaster planning, May Day, Preservation

May Day: Occupy Your Disaster Plan

May Day Heritage PreservationHappy May Day! Today, we will be welcoming the coming of spring by dancing around the May Pole and celebrating International Workers Day. Since May Day is also the traditional day to prepare for an emergency in your cultural institution, we will also be making sure we are ready in our library.

Disasters often strike with little or no warning. Waiting until a water pipe bursts or a hurricane hits is not a disaster plan. Today we invite you to do one thing to prepare for an emergency. If you don’t know where to start, we have some ideas for you below and in previous posts. Pick one, any one, just do something to prepare for an emergency today.

Do One Thing

  • Download the new Heritage Preservation Emergency Response and Salvage Wheel iPhone app on your iPhone. It’s free!
  • If you don’t have a smart phone, buy a copy of the Field Guide to Emergency Response and the Salvage Wheel. The combo is on sale through May 31st for $25.95, that’s less than the member rate! This is an excellent resource to help you get your disaster plan together and to respond to any emergency in your collections.
  • Check your disaster kit. Do you need to restock or replace anything? Do you have a pair of warm socks in there? [I still haven’t replaced my respirator, bad conservator!]
  • Review your emergency phone tree. Are the correct people listed and the phone numbers still correct? For those of you in the 919 area code, put a reminder in your document that you now need to dial the 919 area code for local numbers.
  • Review your plan. What’s missing or needs updating? You don’t have to make those changes today, but make an appointment on your calendar to do it…then DO it!
  • If you are not the one responsible for disaster planning or recovery in your institution, find out who is and ask for a copy of the disaster plan. And remember, if it is in electronic form, be sure to print out a copy and take it home. The internet doesn’t work when the power is out and cell phone towers are down.
  • And don’t forget you need a plan at home, too. The Red Cross has some good information on how to put a disaster kit together for your home and family.

Thanks to Heritage Preservation and their efforts over the years to raise awareness of the need for disaster planning and recovery training in cultural institutions. Be sure to check out their home page, and friend them on Face Book.

Now…back to the dancing.

Announcements, Preservation Week

We Are Winners!

1 Comment

Heritage Preservation, the sponsors of May Day 2010, has pulled our name from a hat and awarded us a prize for our May Day blog post. Four winners from all of the participants were randomly drawn by members of the DC 16 firehouse, Heritage Preservation’s local firemen. Very fitting, no?

A list of all the participants finds us in good company. The other winners were Lycoming College’s Snowden Library, the Toy and Minature Museum of Kansas City, and the Balboa Art and Conservation Center.

Our prize is six Rescubes, perfect for those days when you come into work after a long summer holiday weekend only to discover that a water fountain pipe burst sometime at the beginning of that three day weekend, and there are three floors of wet carpeting and a small mold issue to deal with. Not that we would know from personal experience. [It’s all cleaned up now and dehumidifiers and carpet fans are on scene.] Happy Tuesday!

Disaster planning, May Day, Preservation

May Day S.O.S.

Heritage Preservation has for the past several years promoted May Day as the day to think about disaster preparedness in cultural institutions.

To honor May Day we offer resources for you to kick start your disaster plan and recovery efforts. Online disaster planning and recovery advice is everywhere but you need to be an informed consumer when looking at many of these sites. Here are a few that we find useful. Listing does not imply endorsement of any product or company.

Disaster Planning and Response

Council of State Archivists Pocket Response Plan
A free template for creating a folded plan with phone numbers and contact information. It folds down into a business card-sized document.

Northeast Document Conservation Center D-Plan
A free, online template that can be accessed 24/7 from anywhere. You can also print out the plan in case your power is out.

Heritage Preservation: Disaster Wheel and Field Guide to Emergency Response
The wheel is great to have on hand for first responders, especially if they may not be materials experts. The Field Guide is one of the best fill-in-the-blank plans you can have…easy to use, customizable and affordable.

Western Association for Art Conservation “Salvage Operations for Water Damaged Collections”
A classic how-to for several types of materials you may find in museums, libraries and archives. Originally issued in 1988 on water-proof paper, the update in 1997 includes more modern materials. You can always print it out on your own water-proof paper.

Other Resources

Lyrasis Disaster Resources
Includes information for families and personal papers.

Library of Congress Preservation Directorate Emergency Preparedness
Useful information, some of which is hard to find including recovery information should you be hit by a volcano eruption. Don’t say it can’t happen.

Conservation On Line Disaster Preparedness and Response
Loads of information geared towards the professional conservator and preservation administrator.

ProText React Pak and Rescube
Should disaster strike, you need supplies on hand. You can purchase a kit such as the React Pak, or create your own using this as a guide. Put your supplies together now before something happens, and be sure anyone can get to them in an emergency.