Heritage Preservation has produced a video that you can view free of charge from its web site, which demonstrates the basics of salvaging water-damaged materials.  They are providing the video in response to the recent flooding in the midwest, and in addition to describing and showing salvaging processes, it notes the things we need to be cautious about before wading in to try and save our collections.  Check out their online Bookstore–they offer a “disaster combo” of their Field Guide to Emergency Response and their Salvage Wheel, both of which are valuable assets to our preparedness resources (see the link to their site in the right side menu).  The DVD which comes with the Field Guide includes the content of the free video plus much other information, even giving tips on how to deal with wildlife which may find its way into your building after a disaster (probe with a long stick before reaching into a dark area…!).  While most of us probably don’t think of ourselves as conservators, the information from Heritage Preservation might at least help us know what NOT to do until the professionals arrive!

Heidi Sandstrom, Associate Director, NN/LM Pacific Southwest Region, has written a nice article on the NN/LM Emergency Preparedness & Response Plan initiative in the latest issue of Latitudes. Click here to view it.

We visited Claire Hamasu at the University of Utah’s Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library in Salt Lake City on June 18 to meet with the MidContinental Region’s staff, both on site and via their web conferencing tool, Access Grid, to introduce the NN/LM Emergency Preparedness & Response plan.  The morning session included Dan’s presentation followed by discussion of regional issues.  After a break for lunch, the group re-convened via Access Grid to conduct the table-top exercise, followed by more discussion and goal setting for the region.  Since the MCR staff is dispersed among the states in the region, they plan to use Moodle for further planning for training and promotion/marketing.  They see the plan as a way to create added value for hospital libraries in addition to providing a way to assist members in continuing essential services and recovering from disaster.

We visited the Pacific Southwest Region’s office at the UCLA Medical Center on June 20, meeting with Heidi Sandstrom, Judy Consales (Library Director), the PSR staff, and invited guests at the Louise Darling Biomedical Library.  All participants were available on site, and the meeting began with Dan’s presentation and some discussion of risks particular to the Pacific Southwest Region.  The Table-Top exercise was moved to the morning session to that the hospital librarian attending could play a role in the exercise.  Following a break for lunch at the library, the group discussed regional issues, including the collaborative environment among the resource and hospital libraries, activities of the three MLA chapters represented in the region, and ideas for promotion and marketing in the region.  They agreed that it would be helpful to locate a “point person” among their hospital librarians to be the standard-bearer for promoting NN/LM’s EP&R Plan, and plan to begin implementation almost immediately.

Both groups provided lively discussion and ideas for implementing the plan, and are well-positioned to get the word out to the network members in their regions about the services that are now in place for them in the event of emergency or disaster.

I am currently writing the reports for both meetings and will send them to Claire and to Heidi as soon as possible.  Many thanks to Claire, Heidi and all the other RML Associate Directors for their hospitality and for all the excellent planning and implementation of logistics, funding, etc. that made all of these meetings possible.  We enjoyed meeting all of the RML groups, and look forward to being able to continue to work with them as The Plan unfolds.

Hope everyone has a safe and happy Fourth of July!

Hospitals in King County (Washington) are now using software, KCHealthTrac, to manage patient intake during a disaster. The software tracks emergency department status, bed availability, and helps manage medical resources. Click here for a report on the system from KIRO TV.

FAQ on KCHealthTrac

From Hardin’s website ...

The Hardin Library reopened at 7:30am on Monday, June 23.   The Main Library remains closed, so some services are currently interrupted:

Interlibrary Loan requests cannot be processed because the server is down.

Smart Search is down because campus utitilites are strained.

Delivery requests for Main Library materials will not be filled as staff do not have access to the building yet.

Information Commons West is temporarily closed to the public.  Evacuated employees are using it as office space.

This message from Mary Wegner, State Librarian of Iowa, was just sent to me by Kathel Dunn, Associate Director, NN/LM Middle Atlantic Region …

Some of you have asked about the effects of the flooding in Iowa on Iowa libraries. Thanks so much for your concern.

What we know so far is that three libraries have been seriously damaged:

Cedar Rapids Public Library’s main building in downtown Cedar Rapids; the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library located in the Czech Village in Cedar Rapids; and the New Hartford Public Library.

Cedar Rapids is the second largest city in Iowa, with a population of 120,000. Their entire downtown was completely flooded - hundreds of blocks - by the Cedar River which rose 19 feet above flood level. A photo of the public library standing in what looked to be at least 5 feet of water was heartbreaking.

Details are not yet known about the extent of the damage to the Cedar Rapids Public Library building, or how much of the collection has been lost. Unfortunately, we expect the damage to be significant - the building is only a block away from the river. The Czech-Slovak Museum and Library was able to load significant items from both the library and museum collections into two semi trailers, although many materials had to be left behind. The public library in New Hartford, population 659, lost 80% of its books and almost all of their computers.

Flooding in Iowa City, just 15 miles downstream from Cedar Rapids, was also severe. The University of Iowa campus runs along both sides of the river; at least 15 buildings were flooded. We had a report of two inches of water in parts of the basement of the University of Iowa Main Library in Iowa City, but fortunately flood waters from the river did not reach the library. As you may have seen in the news, there was a “book brigade” established in Iowa City to move books out of the lower level of the main university library building.

About seven additional public libraries (in Chelsea, Creston, Elkader, Iowa Falls, Rockford, St. Charles, and Waterloo) have had water damage ranging from mild to fairly serious. We believe that all of these libraries are now open, and that none of their collections were damaged.

We’ve been in touch with libraries along the Mississippi in southeast Iowa, and so far all report that they are safe.

We were fortunate in Des Moines - the levees mostly held in the two rivers which meet in downtown DM.

We have received many heartwarming stories about current heavy use of public libraries in and near the flooded areas. Several libraries have made special arrangements to add more computer terminals for public use.

This is yet another illustration that people turn to their libraries in a time of crisis - for information, for computers and internet access, and as a community gathering place.

The financial impact of the flooding, which occurred in scores of communities all across Iowa, is expected to be in the billions. 16 percent of Iowa’s 25 million tillable acres of farmland are or have been under water.

We’re posting updates about the flood situation on our Web site at www.statelibraryofiowa.org

Check out NN/LM Greater Midwest Region’s blog, The Cornflower, for the latest information on how the recent flooding in the Midwest is affecting health sciences libraries in that region.

Hardin Library at the University of Iowa is now closed due to flooding in the area. The library is scheduled to re-open on June 23rd. Click here for further information.

And this from Janna Lawrence via Karen Vargas …

Due to extreme flooding in the Iowa City area (and all over Iowa), the
University of Iowa is suspending classes and shutting down until Monday,
June 23. Obviously, this includes the Hardin Library for the Health
Sciences.

Hardin itself is on high ground and should be okay, but Main Library is
much closer to the river and is expected to at least have water in the
basement and possibly higher.

More information and amazing pictures can be found at the local paper:
http://www.press-citizen.com

Janna Lawrence, MLIS, AHIP
Assistant Director for Collections and Outreach Hardin Library for the
Health Sciences University of Iowa http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin

Jacqueline Leskovec, Outreach and Evaluation Coordinator, NN/LM Greater Midwest Region, reports the following:

Hardin Library, University of Iowa, remains open but is off DOCLINE.  (See http://uiflood.blogspot.com/.)

Mercy Hospital in Cedar Rapids is off DOCLINE and is experiencing serious flooding.

St. Lukes Medical Center in Milwaukee has water damage and their DOCLINE membership has been suspended as a result.

County Hospital in Franklin, Indiana, also had some evacuation.

Columbus Regional Hospital (Indiana) has closed indefinitely.

At our training sessions, we have mentioned dPlan, which is hosted by the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC), as a template that is easy to use for creating a disaster plan.  It can be created in increments and saved on the NEDCC server, then printed as a PDF once the user has completed all, or whatever part is needed, of the plan.  We had heard that NEDCC is creating a “Lite” version of the plan, which might be even more accessible for network members who don’t have the staffing or time to spend creating an in-depth plan, but we hadn’t heard whether it was available yet.

I contacted Lori Foley, Director of Field Services at NEDCC, to find out what the current status is for dPlan “Lite,” and she responded that the Lite version is not yet ready for prime time, but they are hoping to be able to release it by the end of this summer.  She will send me a heads-up once it goes live, and we’ll pass along the word to the NN/LM constituency.