The Report of the Hurricane Katrina
Damage Assessment was created by SAA and COSAA leaders and Heritage
Preservation staff who toured the Gulf Coast after Katrina to survey the
damage. In the report, short-term and long-term goals have been outlined, many
of which have already been realized (for example, the report calls for the
establishment of an annual emergency preparation day, a role which the May Day
initiative has now filled). The damage assessment team consisted (at that time)
of leadership from national organizations representing the fields of archival
science and preservation, making them qualified to conduct a trusted analysis
of the damage. Because of the collaboration across disciplines (state archives,
private or corporate archives, and preservation), bias was reduced in the
report. Accuracy of the report could easily be determined by checking other
localized reports of Katrina damage to Gulf Coast institutions.
Corrigan’s article discusses the
response and recovery efforts of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane
University following Hurricane Katrina. Published in 2007, the report offers
useful information, but since it was written while the library was still in the
midst of recovery efforts, research should be followed up on to see if some of
its recommendations still hold true today. This is a library publication,
written by a senior staff member at Howard-Tilton Library and thus trustworthy
as a primary source. This article echoes other accounts of post-Katrina
recovery efforts in that it determines that having an updated disaster plan may
not be enough during a hurricane; instead, practicality and improvisation will
be required.
Ellis, Jamie. "Lessons learned: the recovery of a research collection after Hurricane Katrina."Collection Building, Vol. 26, no. 4 (2007): 108 - 111.
Ellis’s article is thematically and
structurally similar to Corrigan’s article, although from the perspective of a
public library in Biloxi, MS. It serves as a post-assessment of Katrina
response activities at a library lacking trained conservation staff or access
to disaster recovery vendors. For this reason, its conservation recommendations
should be scrutinized, but it is still valuable for its general recommendations
and relatability to librarians and archivists in similar financial situations.
McIlwaine, John: IFLA Disaster Preparedness and Planning: A Brief Manual. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, 2006.
This disaster preparedness manual
was prepared by John McIlwaine, under the direction of International Federation
of Library Associations and Institutions IFLA Core Activity on Preservation and
Conservation director Marie-Thérèse Varlamoff. It is an unbiased library
resource with current, relevant guidelines for drafting a disaster plan. Its
recommendations largely reflect those made by similar manuals.
Pearce-Moses, Richard, and Elizabeth Yakel. "The “MayDay” project: promoting disaster preparedness." OCLC Systems & Services, Vol. 23, no. 1 (2007): 16 - 20.
This article describes the history
of the MayDay initiative and offers several suggestions for activities to
perform on MayDay. It is an archival resource written by Richard Pearce-Moses,
former president of SAA, and Elizabeth Yakel of the University of Michigan
School of Information. Pearce-Moses was one of the driving forces behind the
founding of MayDay, a project that still exists today. Although, as its
founder, he does perhaps have a biased opinion of the project’s scope and
importance, the fact remains that MayDay has been and continues to be a
widely-recognized day for disaster planning initiatives.
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