Small Disasters Seen in Sunlight

Abstract

Libraries face many kinds of emergency, but planning for every contingency is a huge challenge. Overwhelmed with books and articles that focus mainly on the catastrophic events, librarians tend to place more emphasis on managing the risk of hurricanes and floods leaving them underprepared for the more mundane and common emergencies, like burst pipes and leaky roofs. This article uses two case studies of small water emergencies to examine how each library managed those emergencies and what lessons were learned. They show that while both incidents were water-related, they were very different in terms of source, size, impact, recovery time, and frequency. Libraries should be planning for small disasters first, and then scaling up preparation to account for the larger events, rather than the reverse, since the smaller events are much more common and often as challenging to the maintenance of services.