Before (Prevention & Preparation)

DURING

AFTER

Prevention - What can go wrong and how can you prevent it?

Risk Assessment & Reduction Overview

Risk Assessment and Reduction Resources

Potential Collection Hazards

Risk Document and Form Examples

Preparation: Do you know what to do?

Planning & Preparedness Overview

Basic Steps to Write a Disaster Preparedness Plan:

General Preparedness Resources

Be Prepared Guidelines: Steps 1-9 (Overview and Forms Included)

Disaster Bins, Emergency Kits & Go-Bags

Training Resources & Tabletop Exercises

Planning & Preparedness Document and Form Examples

Image caption: "Disaster planning flow chart" from the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences' (MAAS) All is Not Lost: The Collection Recovery Booklet, page 7.

Prevention - What can go wrong and how can you prevent it?

Risk Assessment & Reduction Overview

For cultural institutions, having a solid understanding of your institution's risks and hazards will allow you to better communicate your emergency plans to employees, management, and board members and create a safe working environment for staff, researchers, volunteers and the general public.

Identify Potential Threats and Hazards: Protect internal interests by identifying potential hazards to building sites and collections.
Perform Risk and Disaster Assessments: Perform credible risk assessments using scientifically valid and widely used risk assessment techniques. A risk assessment, whether detailed or broad, is a tool to aid in prioritizing resources for preserving the collection.
Analyze and Incorporate Findings: Incorporate risk, disaster, and hazard assessments into the Emergency Planning process.

Risk Assessment Process:

Object > Cabinet/Storage Unit > Room > Building > Campus > Region

Image caption: "What Are the Risks to Museums?" from the Museum Development East Midlands' (MDEM) website.

Risk Assessment and Reduction Resources

ARCS - Emergency Prep During Construction: A Risk Assessment Addendum / Preparación de emergencia durante la construcción
ARCS - Risk Assessment Process Manual / Manual del proceso de evaluación de riesgos
CCI - Emergency Preparedness for Cultural Institutions: Identifying and Reducing Hazards (questions to ask during planning phase)
CCI - Worksheet 4: Emergency Risk Assessment, Summary Chart, and Hazard Key
DHPS|NY Webinar (1:03:32) - Risk Assessment Webinar for Collecting Institutions
FAIC - Risk Evaluation and Planning Program
FDEM - 1000 Friends of Florida - Disaster Mitigation for Historic Structures
NPS - Guidelines on Flood Adaptations for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings
NPS/NCPTT/GOHSEP - Resilient Heritage - Protecting Your Historic Home from Natural Disasters Booklet
- - UNESCO - Building Resilience: Disaster Risk Management for Documentary Heritage & Digital Arches Training Toolkit
  - UNESCO - Fire Risk Management Guide: Protecting Cultural and Natural Heritage from Fire / GUÍA PARA LA GESTIÓN DEL RIESGO DE INCENDIOS

Potential Collection Hazards

AIC Health & Safety Committee - Wiki Page
C2CC Webinar (1:34:03) - Identifying and Managing Hazardous Materials In Museum Collections
COVE - What Makes Hazard Identification Really Work?
DOI - Frequently Asked Questions about Contaminated Museum Collections
SI - Chapter 24: Collection-Based Hazards
SI - Hazards in Collections Chart

Risk Document and Form Examples

Preparation: Do you know what to do?

Planning & Preparedness Overview

A Disaster Preparedness Plan enables timely, effective, and appropriate responses to hazardous events or emerging disaster situations. It provides the overall strategy for minimizing the impact of an emergency, describes the organization and its collections, and clearly defines staff roles in varying emergency situations. An emergency plan will only be effective if everyone on the team understands the plan and has the resources to implement it. As an example, the Heritage Collections Council outlined nine (9) useful steps to help define what to include in a Disaster Preparedness Plan in their Be Prepared document.

Basic Steps to Write a Disaster Preparedness Plan:

Assess All Risks and Threats (What could go wrong?)
Reduce or Remove Those Risks (How can it be prevented?)
Prioritize the Collection (Which objects should be grabbed first?)
Establish a Disaster Response Team (Who are you going to call?)
Establish a Support Network (Who else can help?)

Prepare the Disaster Plan (What do you do?)
Prepare the Disaster Recovery Plan (How do you cope with this?)
Train All Staff (Do they know what to do?)
Review the Plan (What worked, what didn't?)