The Emergency Preparedness & Response Committee for the Southeastern/Atlantic Region (SE/A) of NN/LM met at the Embassy Suites near the University of South Florida, in Tampa, FL on July 14, amongst live oak trees with Spanish moss and crepe myrtle trees in full bloom–a Southern summer in full swing!  To see the State Coordinators, check out the picture in the Photo Gallery (not pictured–the West Virginia Coordinator).  In addition to the Region’s State Coordinators for emergency preparedness, the SE/A RML was represented by Executive Director Janice Kelly and Network Coordinator and Emergency Preparedness & Response Coordinator Beth Wescott.  During the morning session, the group heard an overview and updates on the past year’s progress of the NN/LM National Emergency Preparedness & Response Plan from Dan Wilson, Coordinator of the National plan.  Following Dan’s presentation, all state coordinators reported on the status of preparedness in their areas, which had all been fortunate during the past year, having escaped major damage or service disruption from hurricanes or tornadoes, two of the highest risks for the region.  Following the state reports from Maryland, D.C., West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Puerto Rico, all the state coordinators participated in the ”train the trainer” session for the “10-Step Approach to Service Continuity Planning” for health sciences libraries and information centers, providing some excellent feedback on the new curriculum materials.  SE/A representatives scored high, almost across the board, in the risk assessment exercise, due to the number of weather-related risks as well as port cities, and chemical and nuclear facilities. 

During and after lunch, Dan facilitated a discussion about issues to be addressed in the region such as methods of communication, “buddy library” relationships, and the roles of the RML and the state coordinators.   The consensus was that the group is well-positioned for continued progress with regard to promoting emergency preparedness in the states and across the region, and plans are underway for hosting and teaching classes and representing the initative within local and regional groups.

Recently, Dan has made two presentations, as an invited speaker, that featured the importance of service continuity planning for libraries, and in both cases he used the scenario of social distancing in response to the H1N1 influenza virus (see info from the CDC) as a basis.  Some experts are warning that H1N1 may re-surge in the northern hemisphere early this fall, well before the tradional flu season, so it’s important that we remain aware of the potential risks from a more widespread epidemic than we have seen so far, and that we keep the banner of service continuity moving forward.

On July 9, Dan addressed the monthly conference call hosted by NLM’s Disaster Information Management Research Center (DIMRC), giving an overview of this year’s activities of the NN/LM’s emergency preparedness initiative, and featuring the Hospital Librarians Summit which was held in Chicago in April (click here to see the posting about this).  Other highlights of this year have been conducting training meetings with NN/LM staff and state coordinators in the PNR, SCR, GMR, PSR and SE/A regions, enhancing the Toolkit, and developing promotional materials.  Several participants on the call confirmed that the training has been very effective so far, and “buy-in” from NN/LM members has been excellent.

On July 17, Dan addressed the annual Interlibrary Loan Forum of the Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA) at Sweet Briar College in Lynchburg, VA.  Working from the NN/LM’s emergency preparedness plan, which emphasizes service continuity, especially for Interlibrary Loan services, Dan presented the procedures that have been established through a partnership between the Health Sciences Libraries at the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for providing back-up ILL services for each other in an emergency, and which are transparent to library users.  While the audience represented all types of academic libraries in Virginia, it included several who are NN/LM members.  Click ILL Backup Plan VIVA to see Dan’s slides from the VIVA Forum.

If you would like more information about the ILL backup plan between the two libraries or about training for service continuity, please contact one of us (see the “About Us” tab at the top of the page).

The “10-Step Approach to Service Continuity Planning” class, created by the Coordinator and Project Assistant for the NN/LM Emergency Preparedness & Response Plan, has been approved by the Medical Library Association (MLA) for 2 hours of Continuing Education credit, awarded at the conclusion of the class.  To view information about the class, check here on the MLA Educational Clearinghouse site.  (You can find the class by using “emergency” as the keyword in the search box on the first page of the site.)   If you are interested in arranging a ”10-Step Approach…” class for yourself or a group, contact your NN/LM regional office at 1-800-338-7657.  Classes are offered both face-to-face and virtually.

There are three new brochures available for use in promoting the NN/LM Emergency Preparedness & Response Plan.  There is one that presents an overview of the plan, one that features the Toolkit, and one about the “10-Step Approach to Service Continuity Planning” class.  Check out the new page, “Promotional Materials” here on the Toolkit (see above) for the PDFs of the brochures, and contact your NN/LM office for more information or to arrange a class.

Many thanks to Kathy Murray, who is the Alaska State Emergency Preparedness Coordinator for the Pacific Northwest Region of NN/LM, for sending us a report about a recent incident in her library.  Check out our “Reporting Forms” page to see her report and learn about what happened (did you know there may be glycol in the HVAC lines in your building?) and how they kept their core services up and running despite the damage from the leak.

Yesterday, Tuesday, May 5, we convened a meeting at our library to review our pandemic plans and conduct a brief table-top exercise.  The meeting produced some excellent observations and insights, both for successes and things we need to work out.  The first half of the meeting was a review of our procedures, based the table (see below in the “Planning for Service Continuity During a Pandemic” post) from our library’s emergency preparedness plan.  All the “key players” attended, including:  the library’s emergency response coordinator, the library Director, IT manager, web development manager, business manager, head of reference services, collection development manager, database coordinator, ILL supervisor, and Circulation supervisor.  All these positions played roles in the planning and in the response exercise.  The scenario we used for the table-top exercise:  it is 3 PM on a Sunday afternoon, when the University decides to close all the libraries on campus to enact social-distancing measures.  The closure is intended to prevent the spread of influenza resulting from a pandemic.  What is done immediately?  What is done Monday morning?  Before beginning the discussion of procedures for this scenario, participants drew slips of paper from a bowl, which designated them as “sick” or “well.”  One-third of the participants were designated “sick,” and therefore did not play a role in the exercise.  This pointed out the need for back-up in certain key positions.

Some questions arose that might be helpful to others in the planning process, among them:

• can you change the voice mail message on your library’s main phone from your home?  who has the authority and the access needed to do this?  who is the backup for that person?
• who has current staff home phone number information?  is someone responsible for keeping the list upddated, and for distributing it?  should lists be given to everyone, or to select people?
• do the appropriate library staff have access to the “Ask a Librarian” chat function from home?
• do you need an official “voice” for providing information about the status of the library?  if so, will that person have access to communication channels, such as announcements on your web site?
• can the person responsible for ILL/Document Delivery access resources needed to provide ILL requests to your patrons from home, i.e. is the required software installed on the home computer/laptop?
• is there a provision for emergency access to print materials for affiliated patrons in the event of a patient-care emergency while the library is closed?
• is there an institutional need for designating a way to account for time worked at home by library staff?  

Besides refining our procedures and identifying a few areas to be improved, everyone agreed that the meeting/exercise was an excellent way to keep emergency preparedness, and pandemic planning particularly, in our corporate awareness.

This would be a good time to review your pandemic planning procedures and perform a table-top drill.  For instance, are you ready to continue access to your resources and core services if your library is closed for, say, one week?  Click on the link below to view  a table from the University of Virginia’s Health Sciences Library’s Emergency Preparedness & Response Plan detailing the assignment of responsibilities in the event of a pandemic.  Feel free to borrow.

Pandemic Planning Responsibilities

Also, if you would like more information on the interlibrary loan backup plan developed by the University of Virginia Health Sciences Library and the Health Sciences Library at the University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill, please see the article in the April 2009 issue of the Journal of the Medical Library Association.

The CDC is updating this site http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/ frequently at this point, in order to help everyone stay current with the swine flu situation.  See the “CDC Health Advisory” on this page for the most current information.  I heard on NPR today that Mexico has closed churches, schools, concert halls, and other public spaces to try and slow the spread of the disease.  Should these social-distancing measures be enacted for public spaces, including libraries in the U.S., be aware of measures that libraries can take to keep resources and core services available to their patrons even if their buildings are closed.  Have an alternate home page ready, to show altered hours, to highlight online resources, and to offer online chat services to patrons who need help.  Also remember to change the voice mail message on your library’s main telephone to reflect changed hours and availability of online resources and services.

Here is more information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, available on their Pandemic Flu web site:  http://www.pandemicflu.gov/  The Swine Flu Info widget from HHS is available there to be copied into web pages–this will provide quick access to “Information,” “Investigation,” and “What you can do” sources.

Dan Wilson and I will be in Seattle on Monday, February 9, to meet with Cathy Burroughs, her NN/LM staff, regional representatives and others at the Pacific Northwest Regional (PNR) office of NN/LM at the University of Washington.  In the morning, we will be reporting on recent developments of the NN/LM Emergency Preparedness & Response (EP&RP) initiative and facilitating discussion of regional issues.  In the afternoon, we will facilitate a “train-the-trainer” session for NN/LM staff and regional representatives to enable them to teach the “10-Step Approach to Service Continuity ” to their Network members. 

Other training sessions scheduled for this spring include the South Central Region in Houston in March and the Greater Midwest Region in Chicago in April.   Stay tuned to hear when the NN/LM Emergency Preparedness & Response Plan will be playing at a site near you!

“Dragonfly” image from PNR’s newsletter.

In the interest of helping NN/LM members to put together a concrete plan based on the “10 Steps to Service Continuity” training, I’ve created a template that members can use to draw up a basic plan for their libraries or information centers.  It is attached to the “10 Steps to Service Continuity” page here on the toolkit (see the menu bar above) as a Word document.  Anyone is welcome to download it and customize it at they see fit.  I hope it will serve as a good starting point for us in trying to meet our goal of having plans in place, and that it will be especially helpful to smaller libraries, hospital libraries, or other entities who may not need a comprehensive disaster plan.

The template is designed to focus on service continuity, but it does include space for some personal safety and preservation information.  My goal was to keep the template on standard size paper (8 1/2 x 11), so that nothing special would be required for printing.  I introduced the template to the Tidewater Health Sciences Librarians group two weeks ago, and in discussing it, we realized that the template would be a good thing to complete, print and post in our work areas, especially in smaller libraries that are minimally staffed, or staffed part-time by volunteers who would profit by having the information close by in an emergency.

The 10 Steps template is an addition to the other ones available here and elsewhere, such as PReP, dPlan, and the customized PReP developed by Julie Page and Deborah Halsted (see the Disaster Plan Templates page, menu above), and isn’t intended to replace any of them.  Rather, it is intended to provide another option, given that no two institutions are alike, and needs for emergency planning vary accordingly.  One of this year’s initiatives for NN/LM will be to focus on best ways to help hospital libraries, and we hope that the 10 Steps template will be a good start.