[PADG:543] RE: Research on disaster plans

["Carli, Alice" <acarli@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I don't know of any empirical research. I did, however, attend a session of
a Music Library Association conference in which 3 libraries reported on
disasters. Two were large-scale basement floods, relatively similar
occurences. One library had no disaster plan at all and had horrendous
difficulties, including (but not limited to!) mold-related illness and
insurance problems (their insurer required detailed records on each of the
70,000 items lost), stemming from the fact that staff were not appraised (as
they would have been through a disaster planning process) of mold and
insurance pitfalls, and had no phone tree protocol in place, so all response
was delayed by over a day while waiting for a key staff person to be found
on vacation. The other library had gone through the process of preparing a
disaster plan, and found their disaster response experience much more
straightforward and less stressful, both physically and emotionally.

While the difference was night and day and clearly a result of prior
planning, I don't know how amenable such comparisons are to empirical
research. The above anecdote gives no detailed assessment of the importance
of particular types or styles of planning, though clearly a communications
protocol, prior examination of insurance issues and basic education of
multiple staff members regarding common disaster issues (like mold hazards)
were key. 

Alice Carli
Sibley Music Library

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Patricia Turpening [mailto:Pat.Turpening@xxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2005 11:05 AM
> To: padg@xxxxxxx
> Cc: jgmilles@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PADG:541] Research on disaster plans
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> A colleague of mine in another academic law library wonders 
> whether any 
> empirical research has been done on the cost effectiveness of 
> disaster 
> plans. Do libraries with explicit, detailed plans fare 
> substantially better 
> than libraries with fill-in-the-blank forms and do those with 
> the simpler 
> forms fare substantially better than those with no plans? Is 
> the time and 
> effort that goes into extremely detailed plans paid back when 
> a disaster 
> occurs?
> 
> Pat
> 
> 
> Patricia Turpening
> Head, Preservation and Archives
> Senior Librarian
> Organizing Committee Co-Chair, AAUP
> University of Cincinnati Law Library
> PO Box 210142
> Cincinnati, OH 45221-0142
> Phone: 513-556-0157
> Fax: 513-556-6265
>