Best wishes to all for a safe and Happy New Year!

Sincerely,

Dan Wilson, Coordinator, NN/LM National Emergency Preparedness & Response Initiative
Susan Yowell, Project Assistant, NN/LM National Emergency Preparedness & Response Initiative

Click here to view an 8:51 screencast that I did of the importance of disaster planning in libraries.  The focus of the screencast is on major disasters that can greatly impact library operations.

Mary Congleton, the AHEC Librarian at the University of Kentucky Medical Library, taught the “10-Step Approach to Service Continuity Planning” at the recent meeting of the Kentucky Medical Library Association.  She reports that the class was very well-received, and that the participants left with some ideas and tools for helping their libraries become better prepared for emergencies.  (Participants also received MLA CE credit for completing the class.)  Mary is the State Coordinator for Emergency Preparedness for Kentucky in the Greater Midwest Region of NN/LM.  She has been asked to present the class again at the University, helping to spread the word about the importance of looking at risk, developing procedures, and making plans for continuing service to patrons in an emergency.  Great work, Mary!

Dan Wilson, Coordinator of the NN/LM Emergency Preparedness & Response Plan, has created a new disaster plan template, which is now available here on the Toolkit on the “Disaster Plan Templates” page (see tab in the menu bar above).  The form is a hybrid of the PReP form created by the Council of State Archivists, and the “Template for the 10-Step Approach to Service Continuity,” which is one of tools created as part of the NN/LM Emergency Preparedness & Response Plan. 

The new template is available in Word format, entitled ”University of Virginina HSL PReP for Service Continuity.”  The new template doesn’t replace any of the already-existing ones, rather it adds another option to the menu of choices available.  While visiting the Disaster Plan Templates page, check out the new introduction to the page to view a rationale for having a disaster plan.

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.

We met last week (June 22) with NN/LM staff from the Pacific Southwest Region (PSR) in the Louise Darling Biomedical Library at UCLA, along with representatives from the states in their region (see the photo of state representatives in the gallery here on the site).  Attending for the states were:  Amy Knehans from Hawaii, Cinda McClain from Arizona, Triza Crittle from Nevada, and Chapter liaisons Peggy Tahir and Irene Lovas from California.   After an overview of progress of the national plan and reports from the state representatives and NN/LM staff, we presented the recently developed curriculum for use by NN/LM staff in training members in the “10-Step Approach to Service Continuity,” which now includes a new risk assessment exercise and score sheet handout (thanks to the South Central Region for the encouragement to develop this idea!).

Judy Consales, Director, and Julie Kwan, Network Coordinator of the PSR taught a class called “Are You Ready?” in Hawaii, presenting both face-to-face and using AccessGrid, which was quite successful.  In addition to outreach efforts, Heidi Sandstrom, Associate Director, noted that their library has also continued to develop emergency preparedness plans, having recently enhanced signage and room numbers/designations to help with evacuations and troubleshooting in their building.  Jake Nadal, of the UCLA Library’s Preservation Department, spoke to the group about UCLA’s efforts to provide continuous access to digital resources as well as how to plan for preservation of print materials and other library resources.  The day closed with a discussion of goals for the region during the coming year, as well as some questions and ideas to be addressed, as outlined by Heidi.

Once again, we were energized by the excellent collaborative spirit of the NN/LM staff and the state representatives from the PSR, and benefitted from hearing about their successes as well as ideas for improvement of the plan and the resources offered (e.g. the Toolkit and the training materials).  The PSR training meeting was our last NN/LM staff meeting for this contract year, and we can say without reservation that NN/LM Directors, Associate Directors, all NN/LM staff, and the state representatives have been unfailingly enthusiastic, hospitable, creative, and committed to including emergency preparedness in their outreach to NN/LM members.

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.

On Monday, Feb. 9, Dan and I had the pleasure of meeting with the NN/LM Pacific Northwest Region’s (PNR) staff, as well as the State Emergency Preparedness (EP) Coordinators for the region, and several members of the University of Washington’s Health Sciences Library staff. The meeting at the South Campus Center began with a review by Dan about the progress made with regard to the roll-out and implementation of the NN/LM Emergency Preparedness & Response plan since last spring, when we visited PNR on March 17. The PNR State EP Coordinators contributed information about the status of emergency planning in their states, some of the risks they face (tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes), some challenges in their areas (remote areas in Alaska, sparsely populated areas in Montana) as well as several incidents that have occurred in the past year. Following the updates, Dan facilitated a discussion of current initiatives and issues including MOUs and MAAs, service continuity training, NLM’s Emergency Access Initiative, use of the online toolkit, DOCLINE issues, and others. The afternoon session included a “train-the-trainer” session, in which Dan presented the Instructional Guide for training NN/LM Network members in service continuity, as outlined in the “10 Step Approach to Service Continuity” class. After the class, the State EP Coordinators and Gail Kouame, Consumer Health Coordinator and Chair of the EP Committee, met to plan initiatives for the coming year.

Following the meeting, a group of us went to dinner and were able to follow-up about the day’s activities. Gail reported that the EP Committee is energized, and had come up with lots of good ideas for promoting the Plan in their states. We look forward to hearing about their activities and the ways they will engage their Network members in emergency preparedness!

PNR State Coordinators: Bob Pringle, Washington; Kathy Murray, Alaska; Marcia Francis, Idaho; Dolores Judkins, Oregon; Laurel Egan, Montana

South Campus Center, University of Washington