Resilient Libraries

ABSTRACT

Hazards, both natural and human induced, have impacted libraries throughout history. With multiple examples across the globe of libraries impacted by a range of hazards and the future prospect of natural hazards occurring in greater strength and frequency, it is important for libraries to consider a changed approach to risk management from a ‘response/reactive’ focus to ‘resilience building’. This paper will demonstrate examples of Australian libraries impacted by a range of natural hazards, discuss the meaning of resilience and increase awareness of a specialist ‘Disaster Resilience Toolkit for Libraries’ designed to assist libraries in assessing their current resilience levels to natural hazards, specifically flood, fire and earthquake.

KEYWORDS:

• Libraries
• special collections
• disasters
• disruptive events
• resilience
• library management

Introduction

Hazards, both natural and human induced, have impacted libraries throughout history and collided with thousands of collections containing cultural or historical items of local, state, national and global significance. With multiple examples across the globe of libraries impacted by a range of hazards, it is important for libraries to consider a changed approach to risk management from a ‘response/reactive’ focus to ‘resilience building’, moving beyond a traditional risk assessment or an emergency management plan.

Libraries and Disasters

Around the globe, libraries are frequently subjected to disruptive events caused by natural hazards (“Natural hazards,” 2021), most recently demonstrated by the impact of COVID and the wildfire in South Africa severely damaging the University of Cape Town library (“Cape Town wildfire spreads to university, forcing evacuation of students”, 2021).

Whilst further examples of libraries impacted by a range of natural hazards can be found in Garnett et al. (2018) and Garnett (2019), within Australia, a Cooperative Action by Victorian Academic Libraries (CAVAL, 2003) survey recorded incidents over a 6-year period (1997–2003) including flooding of a rare book room, bushfires destroying libraries or causing power failure across multiple library sites and multiple examples of storm damage, including Canberra (Baker, 2018; Brown, 2020) and Tasmania (Howarth, 2018). In 2011, the flooding in Brisbane threatened the State Library holdings (Day, 2011) and damaged stock at libraries such as Laidley in the Lockyer Valley (Cochrane, 2011).

Within the academic literature, emergency management for libraries has a primary focus on case studies of disaster experiences (Corrigan, 2008; Grant, 2000; Maylone, 1980; Newman & Harris, 2015), advice on developing an emergency management plan (Allain & Vallas, 2014; Yasue, 2012) or advice on restoration and recovery of items (Cullingford, 2016, pp. 25–47). The literature discusses commonalities to barriers for libraries in emergency management planning, including constraints on budgets, limited time to conduct emergency management planning and disbelief that a disaster will occur or that insurance cover will be adequate (Cuthbert & Doig, 1994, p. 13).

Furthermore, case studies (Allain & Vallas, 2014; Fullerton, 2004; Grant, 2000; Roberts, 2015) provide common examples of how low levels of preparedness to disruptive events impacted libraries during response and recovery phases. This includes issues of out-of-date collection lists, inconsistent communication channels for staff, lack of salvage response training and no emergency management plans, or if one exists, the focus was often on damage to collections and not service continuity. There were limited considerations of media management, public messaging or management of spontaneous volunteerism. A limited knowledge of insurance coverage, particularly for Special Collections, was another commonality although research is limited (Cady, 1999; Kostagiolas et al., 2011; Matthews & Eden, 1996). For future library disasters, literature discussing resilience building is rare.

However, Australia will be facing increasing impacts from natural hazards in the future. In a report produced in 2019 entitled ‘An Emerging Era of Disasters’, Glasser (2019) stresses the need to prepare for an increase in concurrent extreme weather events, occurring in closer succession. In Australia, 90% of major disasters are from hydrometeorological hazards (storms, droughts, floods and so on). Extreme fire weather days have increased in recent decades in many regions of Australia, shorter and more intense rainstorms that trigger flash floods and urban flooding are also becoming more frequent, and climate change is shifting tropical cyclones into new areas of eastern Australia, where many structures are not designed to withstand intense cyclones. Similarly, scientists project bushfires are likely to increase, but also the bushfire season will lengthen (“Chapter 2,” 2020).

In Australia, State library collections are valued at close to $4 billion (“About NSLA | National and State Libraries Australia,” 2020) with over 500 special collections listed by academic libraries alone (Cass, 2014). In addition, many public and special libraries hold items of local historical significance. The loss of these items would have a significant impact on the communities they serve. Therefore, it is important that libraries consider resilience building to ensure the protection of collections and ensure service continuity for their respective communities to protect local, state and national heritage.

Resilient Libraries

Resilience is a word often heard, but not always fully understood. Although debate exists over the meaning of the term, the concept of resilience is useful in understanding how people and communities cope in the face of change and uncertainty, bolstering an approach to build capacity to survive acute, often unexpected, disruptions (“What is resilience? – Flinders University,” 2011).

Within emergency management, the term ‘resilience’ is defined by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction [UNDRR], 2017) as the

ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions through risk management.

Resilience essentially encourages preparedness considerations prior to a disruptive event occurring. There are often three general characteristics connected to resilience: coping, adaptive and transformative capacities (Hanisch, 2016). Coping capacities include enduring and overcoming sudden disruptions reactively, rapidly, and with as much flexibility as possible. Adaptive capacities are the proactive and long-term adaptation of structures, processes or modes of behaviour to present and future vulnerabilities, based on lessons learned from past crisis events and anticipation of risks. It does not aim to prevent crises, rather to attenuate harmful and disruptive impacts. Transformative capacities differ from adaptive capacities in that societies do not adapt gradually but undergo radical change.

Libraries can be unaware that resilience building measures require a move beyond a traditional risk assessment or emergency management plan, but how can the consideration of resilience assist?

In simple terms, resilience is the ability to prepare for and recover readily from adversity. In an organisation, this can mean working together to function and sustain critical systems, even under stress; adapt to changes in the physical, social or economic environment; be self-reliant if external resources are limited or cut off and learn from experience to improve over time.

Within organisations, resilience building resides with individual and organisational responses to disruptive events and involves the ability to withstand systematic disruptions and capability to adapt to new environments (Crichton et al., 2009; Starr et al., 2003). Library leaders are critical in preparation for disruptive events, providing foresight, planning, training and other preparedness efforts (McConnell & Drennan, 2006; Smits & Ally, 2003). It is the link between disruptive events and the complex cascading results not readily considered in traditional emergency management plans, which library management may need to consider. Considering and reviewing essential systems and processes, perhaps creating a vulnerability matrix for core services, allows the library to identify preparedness measures having the greatest impact on core services and the protection of collections (Roberts, 2015).

Disaster Resilience Toolkit for Libraries

Recently, the Torrens Resilience Institute, Flinders University, created a Toolkit and Scorecard designed for communities, households and aged care facilities to assess their level of resilience to disruptive events. This provided a basis for the development of a ‘Disaster Resilience Toolkit for Libraries’ (Garnett, 2021) created following conversations with Australian library management who identified that whilst they were supportive of resilience building, there were limited resources available to assist them in achieving a more resilient library (Discussions on Resilient Libraries, 2018).

The Disaster Resilience Toolkit for Libraries provides a set of tools to assist libraries in assessing the resilience of individual libraries to natural hazards (flood, fire and earthquake). The Toolkit comprises a Resilience Scorecard, guidelines on how to use it, a Facility Assessment and other useful resources. The Resilience Scorecard is designed to assist discussion regarding key aspects of resilience, providing an in-time snapshot of how resilient the library currently is, and identify areas for improvement to enhance resilience.

Libraries are required to review four areas that may be applied to their resilience building considerations including Connectedness (How connected are you with your community whether members of the public, researchers etc)?; Risk and Vulnerability (What is the level of risk and vulnerability at your site?); Planning and Procedures (What procedures support your disaster planning, response, and recovery?) and Available Resources (What emergency planning, response and recovery resources are available?).

The process of conducting the Resilience Scorecard allows libraries to identify and protect what really matters, consider management culture and expectations, improve situational awareness and prepare for events not able to be predicted. It identifies capacity and capability, encourages trusted accountability and constructive disobedience and ceases certainty in planning or overplanning with a focus on a capability to be adaptive, flexible, moving from slow to quick time, promoting autonomous self-organising systems and teams and considering worse case scenarios.

Subsequently, 10 Australian libraries have been sought to conduct the process of completing the Resilience Scorecard, provide feedback on the process and review the Disaster Resilience Toolkit for Libraries. The data received to date from this research is currently under review. A free copy of the Toolkit is available from https://librariesanddisasters.com.au/toolkit.

Conclusion

Internationally within disaster risk reduction, the importance of protecting heritage from disruptive events and the role heritage plays in resilience building is becoming increasingly significant, although in Australia only rudimentary links are currently made to disaster risk reduction policy and practice at both national, state and local levels. With libraries continuing to support a range of various communities, as demonstrated during COVID or the recent fires and flooding in the eastern states of Australia, it is important to recognise and appreciate the role in disaster risk reduction across the emergency management cycle libraries have.

Whilst a written emergency management plan is a useful tool, consideration of and conversations around resilience building will provide the required flexibility, adaptability and pre-event considerations that are often required during disruptive events. The Disaster Resilience Toolkit for Libraries is one tool designed to assist in moving towards a more resilient unit against natural hazards, protecting staff and services and assisting in international disaster risk reduction aims of preserving local, state, national and global heritage.

Disclosure statement

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Johanna Garnett

Johanna Garnettholds a Bachelor of Arts (Combined Hons) in History and Politics, Postgraduate in Terrorism and Security Studies, and Master’s Degree in Emergency Management. She is currently an emergency management senior policy officer in the public sector, after previously working at the Torrens Resilience Institute at Flinders University. Her research interest includes building resilience of cultural and historical heritage to disruptive events.