Susan’s Suggestions for Pain-Free Disaster Planning
Suggestion #2: Write procedures/Start to gather information from other departments: You can do both these steps at the same time, which will make putting your plan together easier and faster.
Write procedures: For each emergency event on your list, write a short, basic list of instructions that staff should follow for each emergency. In many cases, your library will already have procedures that you can transcribe. For other events, check the web site for disaster planning/emergency response for your parent institution and adapt any applicable procedures for your particular location and situation. For events not covered by your organization, check the federal and state web sites and adapt procedures for your library. Also look at the established procedures for other health sciences libraries for ideas or existing procedures by checking this blog, or visiting the web sites of the individual libraries. Remember to create a page for Evacuation and for Shelter-In-Place procedures, since these are not events, but they do require procedures.
Start to gather information from other departments: you will need information from all of the library’s departments if you are writing a comprehensive plan. Begin to send requests for information to those who can provide the information, such as:
- Floor plans of your library (you will use these to show locations of alarms and fire extinguishers)
- Communication information: telephone contacts for all library staff, a list of library vendors, emergency contact information for your parent institution
- Essential services procedures from all department heads/supervisors
As you go, continue to request information from others as the need arises. It helps to include a “needed by” date in your message.
This step is really much easier than it sounds! To see how it translates into written form, check out our Comprehensive Disaster Plan. In the PDF that will open, be sure to click on the “Bookmarks” tab to access the quick links to all the parts of the plan.
