Tag Archives: May Day

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.

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, 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.