A disaster plan or manual is made specifically for the purpose of limiting the damage a disaster causes. A disaster can be any number of things which significantly harm the library’s collection, staff, or building. Due to the wide variety of disasters, the content of each library’s manual will depend on what they feel is most important. All disaster plans should include a list of people to contact and their phone numbers.
Beyond the phone list, most plans include basic safety measures like an evacuation plan for the library which points out all the exits and assigns personnel to check various rooms for patrons. A library which has a good disaster plan probably also has laid out preventative measures as well as salvaging priorities for the collection and even the methods of recovery favored by the library for specific disasters.
The methods of protection and recovery depend largely on the disaster. Fire and water disasters are usually grouped together, because if there is a fire, water damage is almost guaranteed to follow. The main cause of library fires has been arson. The main prevention measures for fire has therefore become security and public awareness. Simple things such as emptying trash receptacles and hanging posters dealing with fire prevention are the first and simplest steps to preventing fires, but this doesn’t directly protect the main place arson occurres. The most common place for arson fires to start is the book drop. Therefore, around the 1940s, libraries started to move book drops to curbside locations separated from the main building or at least reinforcing the drop location against fire, so that if burning materials were put in the box the fire would not be able to spread to the main collection (Morris, 1986). Close to this time libraries started to look at building design as a way to prevent fires from spreading. Older more aesthetic designs with open stairwells and open slots on the floors of closed stacks funneled heat and smoke up through the different levels. The shelves and supports were mainly cast iron and wrought iron, which buckled under the heat and stress dumping the whole collection down into the fire below (Morris, 1986). Newer designs strove to correct these inherent weaknesses in the buildings.
By 1972, almost all libraries were built with fire protections. Early warning systems and sprinklers are the most common devices to fight fires within the library. Sprinklers use a common and inexpensive extinguishing agent, namely water. There are other extinguishing agents, however, if a library wishes to avoid water damage to their collection. High-expansion foam, for example, is used in the British Public Record Office at Kew, near London. The foam suppresses fire with very little water. This makes recovery of materials easier and cheaper than if they had been doused with water.
Halon 131 is another extinguishing agent used in some libraries use. Halon is a gas which suppresses fire almost instantly and leaves no residue. Therefore, it can be used in collections which could not handle being doused in water or foam. It is very expensive, however, and must be handled with care. The 5 or 6 percent of the atmosphere which is needed to suppress fire is not harmful to humans, but too much more can be. Due to this danger and the expense, Halon systems are regulated closely and used only for special collections which would could not be recovered from water damage and must be triggered by more than one sensor (Morris, 1986).
All these precautions can not prevent fires totally, however. So when fires occur certain policies must be laid out for handling the emergency. First and foremost is the evacuation of the library. The safety of staff and patrons comes before all else. Staff members should be well practiced in evacuation drills and be able to help disabled patrons to the nearest usable exit for them. Once the scene is clear and the alarm has been raised, attention must be turned to who needs to be contacted and re-entering the library.
Most likely the contacts will include the library’s insurance company, the director of the library, and individuals responsible for preservation or conservation at the library. Of course, once the fire is out the first people on the scene should be the security personnel. Personnel getting to the collection as soon as possible after the fire is important, but first the area needs to be safe. Security should make an inspection of the area to ensure that there are no electric or mechanical hazards (England, 1988).
After almost all fires, there is water recovery to handle as well as smoke and fire damage. The combination of fire and water can leave behind many hidden dangers in the structure of the building, so a careful inspection of the whole building should be done by the recovery team as they estimate the damage and evaluate the size of the recovery. While working at this stage, those in change of recovery should consult the disaster plan for the pre-set priorities for recovery and possibly the financial limitations.
As the salvage work begins a disaster headquarters should be set up to facilitate communication with administration offices. The site of this headquarters should be fairly close to the library, but the size and nature of the disaster also affects the choice of locations for the headquarters. For fire and water recovery work the headquarters should be well ventilated and large enough enable a number of people to work on the collection. Once into the serious recovery work, many decisions will have to be made about whether to repair or replace the materials which were damaged. Having a person on site who has the authority and knowledge of both the financial means available for repair and the measures which would be needed for repair vs. those for replacement is a definite plus. If this isn’t possible, and administration needs to be consulted often on these issues the headquarters and communication are doubly important.
Salvaging fire-damaged materials usually means salvaging water-damaged materials, and the specifics of the methods used for water will be discussed at a later point. Some damage to materials will not be from water, though. Smoke and soot will invade parts of the collection which water and fire never reached. Some of the materials will need to have dirt and soot cleaned from them, even though they are among the less damages books. Other books may have been only slightly damaged by the fire with only small burn marks on the covers or edges. These books would need to be cleaned and possibly have pages trimmed or be rebound with new covers to replace the burnt ones (England, 1988).
The last step in the recovery is the post mortem meeting. This is not specific to fires, but should be a standard practice after every disaster. In major disasters, there will be parties investigating how and why it occurred. Sometimes these parties are the insurance company or board of the library, but other times it could be the police. The post mortem is a time to gather information the recovery team may have found or recorded which would help these investigations as well as a time to evaluate the disaster plan. Problems and holes in the plan will most likely be found when it is put in action and immediately after the emergency is the time to fix them, before they are forgotten.
If fire is the most publicized disaster for libraries, then water is by far the most common. In the survey mentioned at the start of this paper, sixty-four of the seventy-five disasters mentioned were water-related (ACRL, 1994). Water-damage occurs with almost every fire, flood, earthquake, tornado, and hurricane plus less dramatic circumstances such as a bathroom flooding or a water main bursting. Since most of the water disasters are natural occurrences, there is not very much a library can do to prevent the disaster, but there are measures that can be taken to limit the damage. One is as simple as not shelving materials with clay-coated paper, such as encyclopedias, on the bottom shelves where they will be sitting in water if the library floods. Other measures include early warning systems and education.
The individual or team in charge of preservation of the collection should be aware of the local water hazards, such as the flooding history and the potential for a dam to break, etc. They should also be aware of the draining patterns of the area around the library; if possible be sure they drain away from the library building, and if not possible have sump pumps and reserve pumps for emergencies. They should, also, check the shelving and storage areas to see if they are strong enough to handle the stresses or if they will end up just dumping books onto the floor and into water (Morris, 1986).
When a water-related disaster occurs, most of the same steps should be taken that were taken with the fire. As always, safety of staff and patrons comes first. Once the alarm has been raised and everyone is safe, those in charge of disaster management are located and contacted. Much of the salvage work on water-damaged material will need equipment which is not part of the library’s normal operations. Numbers for commercial freezer and refrigerated truck suppliers need to be included on the disaster plan phone list as well as any local recovery firms or suppliers for other materials which will be needed.
Speed is an important factor in water-related disasters to avoid bringing about a second disaster on top of the first. Mold spores flourish in warm humid and contained air. After a flood, books should be kept tightly closed but not tightly packed to avoid extensive mold growth. Some mold can be expected to appear within three to four days of the water damage, but this mold can be minimized by moving the books quickly and keeping cool air circulating around the loosely packed books or freezing the books. Freezing will not kill the mold, but it will put the spoors in a dormant state. A large collection could require the use of a fungicidal fogging (England, 1988).
Actually working on the materials is a sensitive matter with water-damage. Work usually starts from the doors and works into the stacks and from the floor up to the higher shelves. The books on the floor and bottom shelves are the ones which will generally be the most damaged, because they will be sitting in the water and could have been damaged from falling from higher shelves.
Piles of unbound papers should be left where they are until the collection librarian or other designated advisor can handle them. Disturbing the unsupported paper could cause more damage than there already is if one is not trained to deal with it. If the material in the collection, bound or unbound, is very valuable, the library’s conservator should be on hand to handle that part of the collection so that no further damage is done while trying to save the collection.
If at all possible move the material in its original containers (document boxes, map cabinet, drawers) off the site and to the salvage headquarters. Once away from the scene of the flood the documents should be evaluated. Some containers such as document boxes absorb a great deal of water and the documents inside may only be damp, not wet. The decision of whether to try to salvage the documents also needs to be made.
If the attempt is to be made and the materials are not going to be frozen, the whole stack of paper needs to be removed from the container. A sheet of 3 to 4 mil polyester film can be laid over the top of the stack. Gently rub a bone folder or cloth over the surface to create friction between the paper and polyester. This will allow the top sheet of paper to be peeled off the other papers. This sheet can then be laid out on nylon or plastic webbing to air dry. If the collection is in a special order, care should be taken to remove it in that order and take notes on where it belongs in the collection on the drying sheets (England, 1988).
Unlike unbound documents, books can be fairly safe to handle and should be packed as they are found. If the book was open, do not try to close it when packing and if it is closed do not try to open the book. To avoid crushing and further damage as well as water-damage, keep the wet materials in small units and remove them from the scene quickly. The books should be grouped in units based on the amount of work needed to salvage as well as the level of priority it has in the collection. It is generally most efficient to work on the least damaged to the most damaged materials (England, 1988).
Some materials should be frozen immediately. These books include art books and encyclopedias which are usually printed on coated clay paper. If it is not possible to freeze then immediately, then the best thing for the books is to leave them in water until they can be frozen. These books are some of the most difficult to salvage and even the best methods leave them somewhat damaged. To date, the best method found has been to keep the books frozen until they can be freeze dried or vacuum dried. This can save the books, but it leaves the paper limp and dulls the shine on the paper (England, 1988).
Regular books in the collection are easier to save from water-damage. If the book is only damp, it can be stood upright with covers and pages fanned in a cool, dry place to air dry. Fans can be used to increase air circulation, but should not be directly on the books. If the book is wet, it will probably need to be cleaned before being dried. Floods generally bring a great deal of mud with the water. The washing should be supervised, but it can use either running water or a cycling process with a series of four to eight washing basins filled with water for closed books.
The closed book should be help firmly shut under the running water while the mud, slit, and slime is removed by sponging with a dabbing motion. No brushes should be used on the books and they should not be rubbed. The water should be doing almost all of the work. Clinging mud can be left to brush off after the book has been dried (England, 1988). Books do not necessarily need to be cleaned before being packed for a freezing, but it is advisable if possible. Freezing at an early stage can eliminate the need for sterilization and treatment to combat mold later so speed is also a consideration. Another method of controlling mold is to dip the wet books in fungicide before freezing (England, 1988).
The materials which are frozen need to be warped or separated, one from the other, by sheets of butcher’s coated paper, freezer paper or wax or silicone release paper. This keeps the different materials from sticking together after they have been frozen. If the materials and time permit pieces of wax or silicone release paper may be placed between the front/back paste-down endpapers and the front/back free endpaper for additional protection. Open books should be wrapped as they are found, placed on top of any carton, but not weighted down by other books in the carton. Bread trays, plastic milk crates or strong plastic mesh household baskets, which are stackable are best for packing books in the freezer (England, 1988). Each carton or box going into the freezers needs to be tagged. Cardboard mailing tags work well. The contents of the boxes are listed on each tag for easy retrieval from the freezer when it comes time to treat the books. If the tags are too small to contain information on all of the contents, a shorthand notation which coordinates with a cataloger’s synopsis of the contents and condition of the books. The individual books should keep their original labels if it is at all possible, even if that means just wrapping a separated label with the book to avoid the need to recatalog the book after it has been salvaged.
The two most effective methods of drying are vacuum and freeze-drying. These both require special equipment and usually an outside company to do the actual work. Due to this they are quite costly compared to the many other methods based on air drying and blotting. These more commonly used methods need to be performed in an environment which is cool and dry as possible with dehumidifiers, fans and air conditioning units.
To vacuum-dry books, they are placed in a vacuum chamber. A near vacuum is produced in the chamber resulting in the water molecules being drawn out of the wet materials. Military or atomic energy installations, science museums and archives are the likely places to fine the strong vacuums required for this process. The advantage to vacuum drying is the ability to box books up and place them directly into the chamber. Another advantage to vacuum drying is that many books can be dried together in two-week cycles. There are drawbacks too, however. Not all materials can be handled together in a vacuum process. People experienced with the collection and valuable pieces in the collection should be on hand to ensure that early manuscripts and early printed books are not vacuum dried. The heat involved in the process damages these materials. Acid migration also occurs with materials in the vacuum chamber, so if there is a book has been treated to remove acid, it should not be put in the chamber with other books which have not been treated. The books treated by vacuum drying also need a week or two to recover their natural moisture, because the process overdries them (England, 1988).
Freeze drying has been the most popular method of drying books since 1975. In this process, frozen books are placed in a freeze drying chamber. The shelves in the chamber are gently warmed and the ice crystals are sublimated, or turned from ice directly to gaseous state, out of the materials onto large coils. These chambers are most likely found at large capacity freeze drying facilities. The information on these companies, or other commercial sources for this service should be listed in the phone list in the disaster plan.
As with most methods there are disadvantages to freeze drying. Ice crystals can form in the book, which breaks the cells of the paper and bindings which lessens the strength of adhesives. Blast freezing diminishes the formation of ice crystals, but the equipment is not generally available for handling books and other library material. Freezing also expands and distorts the water-soaked material. Freeze-drying, even when it returns material to a usable state, never returns them to their original state.
There are definite advantages to freeze-drying which makes it so popular. Freezing the books controls the mold which generally causes problems in water-damaged books. It stops the leaching of acids and dyes. It also enables the books to be stored for years, if necessarily, until there is time to handle them. It is a way to buy time to investigate and consider different options.
All other methods of drying are based in air drying or blotting. Most books can be carefully air dried by standing them on their heads, that is the top edge. This reduced the sagging on the text block and allows the water to drain away. Books should be stood on several sheets of absorbent paper, which is replaced often. Used sheets should not only be thrown away, but also removed from the drying area to keep the air as dry as possible. When air drying documents, they should be laid out flat and more pressure should be applied as they grow drier to flatten the sheets and minimize the warping. Some documents can be put through a roller or ironed to flatten them, but only by experienced individuals (England, 1988). Another way to dry the pages of a book in interleaving. Sheets of newsprint, strong tissue, blotting paper, or paper towels can be placed between pages of the books. Care must be taken with this method. Wet pages will tear easily, so opening the book must be done with care. If too many sheets are used at once while interleaving, the binding of the book could be damaged or broken.
Non-print materials need different types of drying and treatment from water. Film can usually be soaked and peeled apart, but needs to be handled with care to avoid scratching the print surface. Photographs in protective envelopes should not be allowed to dry within the envelopes, because they will stick to the envelope. The suggested method of removing them is to soak the photograph envelope and all in plastic containers of clean cold water (England, 1988).
Fire and water are not the only disasters a library needs to be prepared to handle, but they are the most common occurrences which need extensive recovery and salvage work. Having plans in place before disasters occur, helps to speed the salvaging efforts, which make it possible to recover more of the materials with less trouble. Other disasters tend to deal more with people than with the library materials.
These types of disasters include problem patrons, problems with the staff, and problems with the building. These things are not commonly thought of as disasters, because they do not cause the extensive damage to the collection which the first types of disasters do. However, if you value your staff, their efficiency, and their safety these things can be a large concern and should have policies in place as well as being mapped out in the disaster plan.
Everyone working in libraries has heard the stories about difficult patrons and how annoying they can be, but what happens when they are no longer annoying and become frightening. It seems a bit odd to think of the library as a dangerous place, but it can be. Public libraries are by definition a public place and open to anyone who chooses to enter, which could mean unfriendly or irrational individuals.
There is nothing a public library can do to prevent these individuals from entering, but there are measures which can be taken to protect the staff. First, policies should be in place and known by the personnel for people in the library being required to use the libraries resources as they were meant to be used. Enforcing this type of policy can be difficult, however, and that is what should be included in the disaster plan.
A set of instructions and tips for dealing with angry or uncooperative patrons should also be included in a disaster manual or kept at the reference desk. These tips can include methods for keeping things calm as well as when to call for help. One measure which most public libraries are taking today is having a private security force patrol the library. There are many things that staff can do before, or without security to keep the patron calm until help can arrive if needed. Keeping things calm could be as simple as knowing your patrons and who will be upset by what. Then avoiding whatever that is, or minimizing the chances of it happening. For patrons who are unfamiliar, the librarian dealing with them should maintain a calm tone of voice and avoid turning the situation into a confrontation.
By standing slightly to one side of the patron instead of directly in front of them, the librarian communicates with body language that it is a friendly conversation not a confrontation. The same message is communicated by avoiding hand gestures which reach toward the patron or seem aggressive. Angry patrons usually only want to be heard, so the situation is then solved by simply listening to the patron, and if possible offering some kind of conciliatory measure.
If the patron becomes more than angry and threatens or becomes violent, the first thing to remember is not to meet the threat alone. If a staff member is alone with an angry patron there should be a simple, unobtrusive signal they can give another staff member for when they need help. Both staff members should avoid arguing or threatening the patron, even if s/he is threatening violence. The patron should be kept in an open area of the library where they can not trap the staff member.
Once it has reached this point, it is clear that some kind of formal help should have been called. This could mean a private security firm or the local police or both. This doesn’t mean that the problem is solved, because the help may not arrive for some time. These situations are very stressful and if would help to have your staff educated by role playing problem situations as well as having procedures explained in the disaster plan.
Patrons are not the only people in the library which cause problems. Library management should be able to trust their staff, but there will be some members of the staff who prove to be untrustworthy. The most logical course of action will be to fire these individuals. They, however, may not leave quietly. There are many way which a former personnel member could cause a great deal of harm, especially with the new online catalogs and electronic resources. These situations are not terribly common and so they can be handled with very general and short procedures in the disaster manual. Warning should be given, discreetly, to the staff if the management believes that a former employee may come back to cause problems. Passwords and access codes should be changed fairly regularly and immediately if a high level staff member is released under unfriendly terms.
The last type of problem is not preventable, unless you have a hand in designing the library building. Many buildings for modern libraries have difficulties built into them. These may or may not be large enough to be included in the disaster plan. If, for example, the building’s layout leaves many small areas secluded and your library has a problem with patrons abusing materials, some solutions should be laid out in the disaster plan. These solutions could be simple rounds made by the librarian on duty or a change in the stacks to make the floors visible from the reference desk.
All these different problems come in levels of seriousness as well as levels of frequency, but all can and do happen in all types and sizes of libraries. Having a disaster plan could mean the survival of your collection and the safety of your patrons and staff. For a disaster plan to be effective it must be kept up-to-date and the whole staff must know it. To achieve this a schedule should be made, included in the beginning of the disaster plan and followed. The procedures in the disaster plan, or manual, can be efficiently updated once every three to five years. Methods for recovering materials and the plans for dealing with most emergencies will not change much through this time. Other parts of the plan should be updates yearly at least. The most important of these is the phone list. Contact people and other personnel lists should be kept up-to-date, but chances are the changes will not happen yearly. The lists of phone numbers for people to call as well as commercial agencies to help with recovery and salvage. In a disaster situation, your staff will not have time to search for numbers to new companies if the numbers of the list are out-of-date. Updating a phone list may not seem very important during normal times, especially when there is always more immediate problems with patrons needing help, paperwork to be done, or some other research needed by a deadline. However, the small amount of time it takes to double check the numbers and to be sure that the companies listed are still open and operating will be worth it when a disaster strikes.
Of course there is still educating and keeping your staff aware of the disaster plan and the information it contains. The most effective method for doing this is having yearly seminars to remind your staff of the procedures used with problem patrons and evacuation procedures. If your library has a preservation department which will work more hands-on during the recovery of the library materials, sessions on how to handle wet books and documents or the safety issues on entering a disaster scene would also be appropriate education for the staff. These would not be necessary if you plan to use a commercial company come in and do the salvage work. If your library happens to be in a flood area, it would be smart to plan these sessions yearly just before flood season.
All these precautions and procedures may not be needed often, but no one can avoid disasters and regular everyday problems forever. Having plans and an educated staff can mean the survival of people as well as your library materials. Damage will happen, but with an up-to-date, organized disaster plan and organized, aware personnel damage will be minimized.
Works Cited
Association of College and Research Libraries. Emergency Planning and Management in College Libraries: CLIP # 17. Chicago, IL: ACRL, 1994.
England, Clair and Karen Evans. Disaster Management for Libraries - planning and process. Canada: Canadian Library Association, 1988.
Morris, John. The Library Disaster Preparedness Handbook. Chicago, IL: American Library Association, 1986.