[PADG:544] RE: Research on disaster plans

[Lynn A Davis <ldavis@xxxxxxxxxx>]

The University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) Library has had a disaster plan
in place since the 1990s.  This plan was continually revised and updated
over the years.  Besides the staff in the Preservation Department we
regularly trained a committee of Library staff re. collection disaster
response and recovery.  This included our mail room and fiscal staff.
We also had several construction related small disasters (under 2000
books) that assisted in training the staff and getting the Library
Administration support for on-site supplies, etc.
For me the key to our plan is that it is very simple.  Pretty much who
what when where... The why and how are associated with the plan as
attachments, and are of course part of the training.
The plan worked when we had the flash flood that took out the basement
(October 30, 2004).  The Preservation Department was prepared to
successfully deal with collection recovery issues on a scale that we had
not truly imagined.  
However, there were two problems:
1) Disaster planning and recovery re. Library functions and staff.  60
library staff work areas were lost and had to be relocated.  The core of
the Library’s buildings were without electricity for nearly 3 months,
and had to page books from dark stacks to make them available to
students and faculty in the Library Addition that was not damaged by the
flood. 
2) The University does not have a campus wide disaster plan in place. 
Everything the Library does re. building, staffing, etc. is like
re-inventing the wheel or finding the decision maker.  This has huge
implications re. safety and cost of recovery.  The building is now open,
however we are running AC, and electricity from diesel generators...
this is very costly. I have become a believer in pre-qualifying disaster
recovery companies, so that you do not have to deal with sorting out
qualified companies in the midst of crisis.
3)  I consider collection management issues separate from disaster
recovery.  I come from a Museum background to UHM Library and find it
shocking how little control we have over groups of materials that are
not catalogued at an item level.  The map division, at the time of the
disaster, estimated that there were 50 maps per drawer, and they did not
have any description of drawer contents.  It turns out that we have
between 75 -160 maps per drawer.  This naturally has had an impact of
determining cost of recovery.  The insurance company accepted our
general description of collection loses, but we are now negotiating with
FEMA, and they want much more detailed information.  

aloha maikai,
lynn

Lynn Ann Davis
Head, Preservation Department
University of Hawaii at Manoa Library
2550 McCarthy Mall
Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
Phone:  (808) 956-8539
FAX:    (808) 956-5968

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carli, Alice" <acarli@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wednesday, June 29, 2005 10:29 am
Subject: [PADG:543] RE: Research on disaster plans

> 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 
> importanceof 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
> > 
> 
>