The Virginia Department of Emergency Management hosted a state-wide emergency management conference in mid-March, featuring presentations by emergency planners who have successfully used GIS (Geographic Information System) techniques to assist in planning for and responding to events such as flooding, a radiological event from a nuclear power station, hazmat incidents and search-and-rescue operations.  Check here to find the list of presentations, available from the state’s site in PDF format, and see some excellent examples of the use of technology to assist in emergency response.

An outcome of the THeSLA meeting in Nashville (see earlier post) is that the report of the meeting provides an excellent example of how a group can collaborate about emergency preparedness, identify goals and establish a timeline for accomplishing them. The THeSLA meeting and results as shown in the report (click on the link below) provide a very reasonable model for other states or consortia who are interested in initiating an organized emergency response plan. If you are interested in planning such a meeting or have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

THeSLA Meeting Report

The Mid-Atlantic Chapter (MAC) of MLA met last week in Baltimore, MD for their annual meeting.  The program featured several emergency response planning topics:

• keynote address:  Georges Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP(E), American Public Health Association, Washington, DC.  Dr. Benjamin spoke on “Building Community Resilience:  Ensuring Emergency Preparedness”
• poster presentation featuring this site (Disaster Planning for Health Sciences Libraries) as an example of how a blog can function as an information resource
• NN/LM update:  Janice Kelly gave an overview of NN/LM activities including the creation of the National Emergency Preparedness Plan task force.  Janice was introducing Dan Wilson, who would be speaking about the plans being developed, when the hotel’s alarm began to sound and everyone had to evacuate the building!  Fortunately, we were allowed back inside within about 15 minutes, and Dan was able to quickly go through his presentation, which included an overview of the plan in process, the outcomes of the THeSLA meeting, and the basics of the response procedure at this time.

The THeSLA meeting was fantastic! All participants were motivated to make things happen, and we came out with a lot of good ideas and initiatives. Here’s a list of some of the charges that the group will be working on:

1. Encourage all health sciences libraries in Tennessee to write a disaster plan based on the Pocket Response Plan (PReP).
2. Initiate disaster preparedness discussions with resource libraries in state.
3. Look into adding an MDConsult subgroup to TENN-SHARE.
4. Develop a grant for a “disaster information cart.”
5. Encourage health sciences libraries in Tennessee to make preparedness arrangements with a “buddy” library.
6. Create a Tennessee disaster related blog on the SE/A web page.
7. Find out from SOLINET what disaster related resources/services they offer.

Susan Yowell and I will be facilitating the fall meeting of the Tennessee Health Science Library Association (THeSLA), which will be held in Nashville, Tennessee on September 24th and 25th.  The cost of the meeting is $50 for THeSLA members and $75 for non-members.  The program includes the following:

• Dan Wilson will speak on the accomplishments of the NN/LM SE/A Emergency Preparedness Task Force and the goals of the NN/LM National Emergency Preparedness Plan.
• Walter Cybulski, Head, Quality Assurance Unit, Preservation, National Library of Medicine, will present “Salvaging Water Damaged Library Collections.”
• Dr. Robert H. Latham, Chief of Medicine, Infectious Diseases, St. Thomas Hospital, Nashville, TN, will speak on the avian flu.
• Susan Yowell will present “20 Tips for Creating a Successful Disaster Plan.”
• Jessica Leming, Solinet, will conduct a Solinet preservation class.
• Dan Wilson and Susan Yowell will facilitate the development of MOUs among the THeSLA libraries.

For more information on the meeting, please contact Jan Haley at (615) 222-3051.

Deborah Halsted and Julie Page have been putting together a new CE course on disaster preparedness. They will be teaching the class on October 20th at the South Central Chapter of the MLA annual meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here’s a description of the class:

Before Disaster Strikes: Essential Steps in Disaster Preparedness

When the pipe breaks, the fire starts, or the hurricane hits, what will you do? The effectiveness of your response and the success you have in restoring services and collections will be the result of how well you have prepared. Learn what you should do and who should be involved before faced with a disaster, in order to protect people, prevent damage, and provide the best possible outcome.

The course will cover the following:

• Key steps in disaster preparedness
• Building collaborative relationships
• Components of a disaster plan
• Preparation of a Pocket Response Plan
• Group exercise in response to a scenario
• “Exercising” your plans; staff training and drills

Dan and I attended the ANCHASL (Association of North Carolina Health and Science Libraries) meeting in Raleigh on Friday, June 15 (click here to see the program).  The meeting was held in the beautiful Andrews Conference Center at the Wake Area Health Education Center.  Robert James (Duke University) is the president of ANCHASL this year, and had organized the meeting, which was well attended by both academic and hospital librarians.  In addition to the North Carolina members, a hospital librarian from Lowell, Massachusetts attended, as well as Beth Wescott from NN/LM.  The program for the day included a short business meeting for the organization, but otherwise focused on raising awareness about disaster preparedness and educating attendees about writing disaster plans, developing contingency plans for maintaining services, and salvaging collections.  The meeting featured informative and entertaining speakers on several different aspects of disaster preparedness and emergency response.  The information presented engendered some very productive discussion and questions.  Here’s a list of the speakers:

• Mark Schell, Durham County Emergency Management, on working with first responders and emergency managers 
• Robert James, Duke University Medical Center Library, on writing a library disaster plan.  As part of his presentation, Robert outlined use of the Heritage Preservation’s Disaster Wheel, and distributed copies of the wheel to all participants.  He also referred to the Field Guide published last summer by Heritage Preservation.
• Walter Cybulski, NLM, on salvaging water damaged collections
• Angie Santiago, of the  Contingency Planning Association of the Carolinas, on service continuity planning for medical libraries
• Dan Wilson, chair for the SE/A RML Emergency Preparedness Task Force, on how the RML can provide support to health sciences libraries in emergency

The SCC/MLA Disaster Preparedness Symposium is taking place today in College Station. It looks like a great program, and we’re hoping that someone can summarize the event for the blog next week. Best of luck to all participants!

Lisa McGuire just sent us PowerPoint slides (click on the link at the end of this entry)  from her presentation on pandemic planning that she did last week at the MidWest Chapter Meeting. The slides contain a lot of good information for thinking about the impact of a pandemic on your library. I particularly liked the slides on the technologies faculty and students would most likely used during “social distancing.” Please feel free to contact Lisa (lmcguire@umn.edu) for further information.
lisamcguirespresentation.ppt

We enjoyed meeting many people interested in developing a comprehensive disaster plan at the SC/MAC meeting this past weekend. We hope to have the entire plan available from our library’s web site by the end of this week. Issues that we discussed with colleagues who are responsible for disaster planning included the shelter-in-place procedure, how we handle acquiring and storing disaster supplies, how we developed partnerships with other health sciences libraries, and how the disaster planning blog is set up. Other topics included staff training for emergency response and how to develop signage and procedures for quick responses.

(Click here to see our poster.)