An Ounce of Prevention: Integrated Disaster Planning for Archives, Libraries and Record Centers

Citation

Pomes, S.V. (2002), "An Ounce of Prevention: Integrated Disaster Planning for Archives, Libraries and Record Centers", Performance Measurement and Metrics, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 150-151. https://doi.org/10.1108/pmm.2002.3.3.150.1

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Thus goes the familiar cliché about anticipating and dealing with a situation before it becomes a serious problem, requiring much time and effort to solve. This is the main thrust of this book, as it pertains to disaster planning for libraries, archives, and record centres.

As the tragic events on 11 September 2001 demonstrate, attention to disaster planning is extremely important for every organisation and institution. Besides the terrible human costs due to this attack, organisations lost valuable print and electronic documents – some of which are irreplaceable. Admittedly, unforeseen circumstances will always exist, but good planning will assist organisations in the continuity of their respective operations. Consequently, a well‐researched book on disaster planning is timely and necessary for librarians, archivists, and records managers.

Originally published in 1985, An Ounce of Prevention was a significant work for librarians, archivists, records managers, because the authors presented a detailed guide to planning for and coping with disasters. Believing that effective planning will make disasters more manageable, the authors set out ways to anticipate and deal with these events. The audience of the book responded favorably, and the authors received the Waldo Gifford Leland Award from the Society of American Archivists. Since the appearance of this book, other authors have published books, articles, reports, and other materials on disaster planning for libraries, archives, record centres, and other types of institutions and organisations. Nevertheless, this book is a welcome addition to the body of work on this subject. In the present work, Wellheiser, Scott, and Barton have revised and enlarged the earlier edition. The work includes ten chapters and three appendices.

The chapters include: 1. Disaster planning, 2. The disaster plan, 3. Disaster prevention planning, 4. Disaster protection, planning, 5. Disaster preparedness planning, 6. Disaster response planning, 7. Disaster recovery planning for collections and records, 8. Disaster rehabilitation planning for collections and records, 9. Disaster recovery and rehabilitation planning for facilities and systems, and 10. Post‐disaster planning. While the chapter titles seem to blur together, Wellheiser, Scott, and Barton make the reading easier by breaking down chapters into smaller, discrete units each receiving separate numbers.

The authors state that they wrote the book “for those individuals in archives, libraries, and record centres charged with the responsibility for disaster planning”. The authors assume that the readers have a “basic knowledge of collections preservations”, but their intent is not to turn “the disaster planners into professional emergency service providers”.

Believing that disaster planning is an ongoing process, the authors stress that planning should involve all departments of an organisation. Wellheiser, Scott, and Barton realise that information professionals will place emphasis on the safety and security of their respective collections. The authors, however, stress that good disaster planning must focus on the safety and security of personnel who work with and use these collections.

Besides providing extensive information on formulating a disaster plan, the authors discuss proper storage conditions for various materials (e.g. books, manuscripts, videocassettes, works of art, magnetic media, DVDs, etc.). This inclusion of material is an added benefit to the book. For less affluent institutions, this information may make the book a sort of preservation manual, although the authors probably did not intend the book to be a conservation and preservation text.

As one would expect, the authors discuss various types of natural disasters (e.g. floods, hurricanes, fires, earthquakes, and tornadoes) and their effects on collections (e.g. water damage, mould, and smoke damage). Not stopping there, the authors discuss willful damage and destruction of collections (e.g. arson, vandalism, theft, civil disturbances, terrorism and warfare). The authors provide extensive information to this end.

One of the real strengths of the book, is the inclusion of information on dealing with damaged materials. For example, the authors discuss what to do with water‐damaged materials. The authors go into detail on stabilising damaged materials. While many institutions will use professional conservation and restoration services, having this information will make planning and decision‐making operations more efficient and effective for staff members and administrators.

Since Wellheiser, Scott, and Barton are Canadian, it is not surprising that many of their examples in the text are Canadian in origin. Nevertheless, the authors allude to publications from various professional organisations from different countries. For example, the authors reference (among many others) the National Fire Protection Association (located in the USA) and the International Association of Sound Archives (located in Germany).

Like its predecessor, this book contains no illustrations. While the text is largely self‐explanatory, the inclusion of illustrations would serve to amplify the information in the text for those readers less knowledgeable in actual disaster recovery operations. (An earlier publication (Lawrence, 1992) from the Historic New Orleans Collection includes numerous photographs of damaged materials and restoration operations, although that book’s author wrote the work for a lay audience, having less technical knowledge and expertise.) This is a minor point, and the authors make up for this “deficiency” by including a lengthy section of references (19 pages), and extensive lists of conservation agencies, restoration services, and other organisations. These lists of references and resources add value to the book.

Overall, this is an excellent book, which is well researched and well written. In this period of increased political and international tensions, this book will be an asset for librarians, archivists, and records managers in creating and evaluating their own disaster plans.