Many thanks to Gail Kouame, Consumer Health Coordinator and lead Emergency Preparedness person for the Pacific Northwest Region (PNR) of NN/LM for the updates about what’s going on there in terms of promoting the NN/LM plan!

• PNR had developed an Emergency Preparedness page on the region’s NN/LM site some time ago, (located at http://nnlm.gov/pnr/services/emergency_preparedness.html.) It is still being updated, and has worked well for their region, while being adapted by others as well.
• Gail attended the “Connecting to Collections” conference for Washington State recently. It is a grant- funded initiative that includes collaborative disaster planning among cultural institutions (libraries, museums, tribal centers, etc.) Gail says she was the only medical librarian in the room, so we are happy to have been so well-represented!
• institutions in Alaska and Oregon are also applying for funding to organize similar initiatives
• Gail convened a meeting of 4 of the region’s 5 state coordinators in the EP&RP on October 22, 2008 as their “kick off” meeting. This meeting followed a teleconference earlier in the year.
• the state coordinators have devised a “talking points” list for use in promoting the plan in their states (contact Gail for more info if you’re interested)
• Gail provided each of the state coordinators with one of the Salvage Wheels from Heritage Preservation (see the “Ready Reference” page on the toolkit), and made sure they knew how to order more if needed
• all the states in PNR are signed up for the MLA webcast on November 12, “Survival Tips and Stories,” and there are plans to purchase DVDs for future use within the states. The host sites are also planning to build in some discussion time around the webcast.
• state coordinators will begin doing phone consultations about the plan soon, using the talking points developed by the group
• Gail will be creating an emergency preparedness “column” in the region’s newsletter, Dragonfly, featuring “guest bloggers” recruited from her state coordinators’ group
• Gail will re-convene the state coordinators in February to follow-up and assess progress

Great work, Gail and PNR state coordinators!

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