Endangers culture heritage: A survey of disaster management planning in Middle East libraries and archives

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey sent to librarians and archivists in national and academic libraries in the Middle East and North Africa and the results of eight in-person interviews about the status and content of wartime disaster management plans in their institutions. Based on the research and analysis it presents, the paper concludes that the majority of the region’s libraries and archives either lack or have insufficient plans in place and stresses the need to establish and implement protocols for the protection and preservation of their priceless holdings. In addition to analysis the paper offers some recommendations for overcoming the impact of future disasters on the holdings of these libraries.

Design/methodology/approach

The research is based on survey and interviews that was done with librarians, archives, managers from the Middle East.

Findings

The paper presented the result of trying to find if libraries, and archives has disaster planning or no. Most of the libraries do not have a disaster plan and maybe do not even know what it means.

Research limitations/implications

The research is covering some of the libraries in the Middle East and it was meant to be send to every library and archive but at least to the national libraries of each country in the Middle East.

Social implications

Disaster planning is very needed to protect any people culture heritage and not having one in spite all the wars and damaged of libraries is something the author’s research addressed.

Originality/value

No one has written about this topic, and the author’s first paper was the scan of literature review of all what was written about disaster planning in a time of war. As a result of not finding anyone who wrote about that topic, the author decided to conduct the survey and the interview to find out if there is a plan or no. The author’s work is original and very important to help in preserving the world heritage in the Middle East.

Citation

Hussein Moustafa, L. (2015), "Endangers culture heritage: A survey of disaster management planning in Middle East libraries and archives", Library Management, Vol. 36 No. 6/7, pp. 476-494. https://doi.org/10.1108/LM-04-2015-0010