In these strange times in which we live, we professionals need to be ready for anything and everything. This book is absolutely packed full of everything you need to be prepared. It is written collaboratively by a librarian and a BIM [building information modelling] manager as the resource crosses boundaries, being equally applicable to the fields of library management and design management.
Most special librarians in Australia are generally not required to be responsible for many of the things discussed in this extensive review of disaster planning. The book is divided into 14 chapters, each subdivided into up to a dozen subsections that allow the reader to pick and choose those relevant. Chapter 8, entitled ‘Strategic Alliances: Internal and External Partners’, might be particularly suited to situations where special libraries are part of a larger organisation with a range of policies and procedures that embrace almost any situation that might arise. However, reading the whole text is to be thoroughly ready, gaining an academic knowledge of what has to be done, whether it is the librarian doing it, or another person or department within the organisation. With the chapter subsections being only a page or two in length, a project for your year could be to read a little each day, and so digest it easily.
Many books tend to be directed at the United States library, discussing things that don’t necessarily translate well to the Australian or New Zealand situation. This book is certainly an exception. It does what it claims to do – to be a reference resource to help the reader develop and maintain disaster planning.
The chapters are systematic, leading from initial preparedness and response through assessment of disaster situations and the implications of such situations. Walking through the book is like living through a situation; it starts with the declaration of a disaster followed by assessment of issues, orientation and training, succession planning, operational resumption, and the auditing of disaster plans.
Extremely useful and important appendices include a ‘risk assessment and analysis and a risk mitigation program, a strike and protest plan, an emergency equipment inspection and audit report, a pandemic management program and disaster response manager’s kit’. This ‘kit’ could almost be described as a check-list, easily modified to the circumstances of each special library, and certainly worth undertaking.
The use of lists (including check-lists, form examples, and quoted examples) makes this a go-to resource that should be on the reading list of all librarians, not just those currently in special libraries. The index is quite good and several pages long, the ‘reading list’ instead of bibliography, while only a page, is all that is required for this text and is designed more as an idea of where to go next for extra reading than a list of sources used.
This text, while excellent, cannot be universal because personal circumstances may differ. In the world of design, building codes and legislation, and internal policies and procedures, specific country professional organisational recommendations differ, so the reader needs to be aware of their own unique circumstances when reading and/or engaging in the recommendations within.
COVID-19, something that left many library personnel having to think on their feet and be creative, receives attention in the areas it impacted. Initially it is discussed in the area of job security, and income consistency, then, as per its listing in the contents page index: ‘Appendix 5: corporate library pandemic management program’.
Appendix 5 provides a very interesting and timely discussion on how so many libraries (and many other businesses I imagine) were caught short by the pandemic – and notes this was the case even during the flu pandemic a hundred years ago. While management plans have considered many of the issues common to their location, e.g. floods or earthquakes, and have adjusted with time to include increasingly possible terrorist attacks or computer hacking, the concept of a world-wide pandemic seems to have been too unimaginable to even be considered. What is extremely useful here is the presentation of the NSICL (Norfolk Square Investments Corporate Library) developed Pandemic Management Program. If for no other reason, purchasing this book will give you this well put-together, thorough, and organised plan that could easily be adapted to the unique needs of any library. Over several pages, the check-lists, explanations, and recommendations for Pandemic Preparation are succinct, accessible and something you’ll probably find yourself using as a base for your own newly identified policy/procedure needs!