Records Emergency Information
Cultural and Historic Institutions
Emergency preparedness minimizes damage from any emergency, whether a small-scale building problem or a catastrophic natural disaster. When an emergency does occur, effective response and recovery actions are necessary to salvage and preserve records and collections held by archives, libraries, museums, historical societies and other cultural institutions.
Prepare
Prepare in advance so damage to records can be prevented. When records are damaged, response and recovery techniques will limit damage and allow more records to be saved.
- Vital Records and Records Disaster Mitigation and Recovery: An Instructional Guide
- Salvage Operations for Water Damaged Archival Collections: A Second Glance
- Emergency Response Training
- Resources for Recovery
- Emergency Response and Salvage Wheel
- Fire Prevention
- Lessons Learned in Emergencies
- Special Challenges (Fire and Fire Suppression)
Respond and Recover
Respond as soon as it is safe to enter the area after an emergency and Recover records or cultural property damaged by the emergency.
Immediate Response
- Emergency: If You’re First
- Save Your Treasures the Right Way
- Resources for Recovery
- Records Recovery Vendors
Paper
- Comparison of Drying Techniques
- What should I do with wet records?
- Tips for the Care of Water-Damaged Family Heirlooms
- Emergency Salvage of Wet Books and Records
- Paper: Framed or Matted
- Coated Paper
- Scrapbooks
- Cloth or Paper Book Covers
- Fire Recovery: A Case Study
Leather and Parchment
Photographs and Film
- Saving Photographs After the Flood
- Photographs and Transparencies
- Emergency Salvage of Wet Photographs
- Microfiche
- Microfilm and Motion Picture Film
Magnetic Media, Audio and Video
- Damage Mitigation and Recovery, Magnetic Media
- Magnetic Media: Reel-to-Reel Tapes
- Magnetic Media: Computer Diskettes
Artifacts
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