What do preservation librarians do? Disaster recovery

A disaster recovery plan is a plan for how to respond if a hurricane, tornado, fire, earthquake or other disaster hits the library. A good disaster recovery plan has, at minimum, these steps:

1) Survey the library to identify potentially problematic areas that may need special attention in the event of certain types of emergencies (ex. shelves next to windows or under sky lights that will need extra protection when preparing for a hurricane) and to identify portions of the collection that are most valuable or most subject to damage and that will, therefore, need the most immediate attention when the disaster is over and recovery can begin.

2) Identify the members of the Emergency Response team and their responsibilities. Make a plan for each eventuality, including instructions for what each person does before, during and after an emergency. The plan should include necessary phone numbers (i.e. maintenance numbers to report water leaks, the numbers of each team member etc). The plans should be distributed to all team members and communicated to all library staff, so they know what to do/who to contact if they see an emergency beginning to happen.

3) Gather the necessary equipment to protect and salvage collection materials in the event of a disaster. Such equipment might include: plastic sheeting to cover shelving, water diverters for covering areas of chronic water leaks, Rescubes (folding boxes made of corrugated polyethylene that do not absorb water from wet books. Books can be sent to freeze-drying facilities in Rescubes), non-woven polyester web or at least unprinted newspaper (for interleaving or wrapping damp books), blotting paper, freezer or waxed Paper (used to separate wet books for packing and shipping to freezer storage). Other obvious items include a wet/dry vac, mops, brooms, buckets, towels, flashlights and common tools such as a screwdriver, hammer and wrenches. A final vital item is a camera to document damage.

Once the emergency is over, quick action can save a major portion of the collection. The following are general emergency response guidelines:

1) First establish a work area, as large, cool and dry as possible. Do not move anything until such an area is established and prepared to receive items.

2) Second, identify the materials that are first priority to save, according to the emergency response plan, and recover them first. Whichever books have been knocked off the shelves in this area should be recovered first. Then move to materials that are still properly shelved.

3) Any materials that cannot be dried within 48 hours need to be protected until it can be dried. The best way to protect such materials is to prepare them for freezing and to freeze them. To prepare a wet book for freezing, pack it in a box, spine down, with wax paper wrapped around every other book to prevent them from sticking together. If the book is muddy, rinse it in a tray of clean water before wrapping it. Documents in file cabinets can be sent to the freezer while still in their drawers. Freezing can be done in a regular household freezer if the materials will fit (i.e. if only a few books were damaged by water) or in industrial freezers. Freeze drying is often the preferred method for drying materials even if they can be dried within 48 hours. Freeze drying causes the least amount of swelling and distortion of paper materials. It is often the only way to dry coated paper, because this paper sticks to almost everything when wet.

4) Care must be taken when moving wet items. Items like maps or pamphlets should be supported on plexiglass or some other sturdy material when being moved or rinsed of mud.

5) Leather and vellum are special cases when wet. Leather rarely survives a complete soaking, and even less so in the case of fire, where the heat causes shrinking and the water causes swelling. Leather that must be saved should be frozen as quickly as possible. Vellum is more durable. If dried using a method that does not use heat, vellum materials can often be restored.

6) Air drying may be a suitable response in the case of a small number of damp, but not soaking wet, items. Air dried items should be interleaved if they have a small number of pages and the binding will tolerate it.

American Library Association. (2008). Disaster Preparedness and Recovery. Available
http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/woissues/disasterpreparedness/distrprep.cfm

North Hall Library of Manfield University. (2006). Disaster Recovery Plan. Available
http://lib.mansfield.edu/pdfs/MU-DRP-PR.pdf