Spotlight

Grant-Subsidized Digitization with the Mass Digitization Collaborative
Libraries and cultural institutions from Maine to Georgia have taken advantage of this great opportunity to digitize their historic books, newspapers, yearbooks, and much more.
Preservation Consulting
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Disaster Response and Recovery

Water

No matter what type of disaster (earthquake, fire, tornado, flood, blizzard), most emergencies involve water, which is why most salvage resources include a section on the recovery of wet and water-damaged resources.
LYRASIS: Drying Wet Books and Records
Emergency Drying Procedures for Water Damaged Collections (Library of Congress)
Salvage at a Glance (Betty Walsh, Western Association for Art Conservators)
Save Your Treasures the Right Way (Heritage Preservation)
Coping with Water Damage (video, Heritage Preservation)
Wet Collection Recovery (pdf, National Park Service)
Treatment of Flood-Damaged Older and Historic Buildings (National Trust for Historic Preservation)
Salvage Procedures for Wet Items (Minnesota Historic Society)

Fire

Fire often completely destroys materials; items not destroyed suffer from smoke and soot damage, which is very expensive to rehabilitate. Effective fire suppression systems are essential to minimizing damage caused by fires.
LYRASIS: Protecting Your Institution from Wildfires (pdf, by Mike Trinkley, Chicora Foundation)
Fire Protection During Alterations and Renovations, page 46 (pdf, by Deborah Freeland, Arthur J. Gallagher and Company, taken from Under Construction: Preservation and Collections Care Issues during Building Projects and Renovations, proceedings from a SOLINET conference, May 30, 2003)
Video, Soot. (Heritage Preservation)
The Fire at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, Part 1: Salvage, Initial Response, and the Implications for Disaster Planning (by Sarah Spafford-Ricci & Fiona Graham, Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, Vol. 39, Number 1, Article 2)
The Fire at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, Part 2: Removal of Soot from Artifacts and Recovery of the Building (by Sarah Spafford-Ricci & Fiona Graham, Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, Vol. 39, Number 1, Article 3)
First Aid for Fire Damaged Audio Visual Material (National Film and Sound Archive, Australia)

Mold

Materials in a humid environment (55% relative humidity or higher) are vulnerable to mold after 48 hours. Materials damaged by mold are not necessarily lost causes, but mold complicates disaster recovery because it can further harm your collections and your health.
LYRASIS: Invasion of the Giant Mold Spore
Mold (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Mold Resources (Environmental Protection Agency)
Mould Outbreak – An Immediate Response (Canadian Conservation Institute)
Emergency Salvage of Moldy Books and Paper (Northeast Document Conservation Center)
Mold Summary (pdf, by Hillary Kaplan, National Center for Preservation Technology & Training)

Pests

LYRASIS: Pest Control Bibliography
Integrated Pest Management (Integrated Pest Management-Working Group)
Establishing Integrated Pest Management Policies and Programs: A Guide for Public Agencies (pdf, University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources)
Pest Management (Conservation Online)
Integrated Pest Management (Northeast Document Conservation Center)
Conservation Service Notes - IPM (Missouri State Archives)

Art

Salvaging Art on Paper (pdf, Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts)
Emergency Treatment of Water-Damaged Paintings on Canvas (Canadian Conservation Institute)

Audiovisual Materials

Book/Paper

Photographs

Salvage of Photographs (Northeast Document Conservation Center)
Salvaging Photograph Collections (pdf, Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts)
A Consumer Guide for the Recovery of Water-Damaged Traditional and Digital Prints (pdf, Image Permanence Institute)

Textiles

Serials

Absolute Backorder Service, Inc. (Evaluates loss of journals/serials collections and tracks down replacement copies)
United States Book Exchange (Supplies back issues of scholarly periodicals, trade journals, popular magazines, and other serials to libraries worldwide)

Services

Need a Conservator?

Choosing and Working with a Conservator (Jan Paris, Northeast Document Conservation Center)
Locating a Conservator (American Institute for Conservation)

National Disaster Recovery Vendors

Supplies

LYRASIS: In-House Supply Stockpile Checklist
LYRASIS: Search for Vendors
List of Supplies and Suppliers (Los Angeles Preservation Network)
Emergency Response and Salvage Wheel: available from the Heritage Emergency National Task Force (also available in Spanish)

REACT PAK - a compact, convenient collection of disaster recovery supplies
RESCUBE - lightweight containers for transporting water-soaked library materials; they fold flat, are reusable, and hold a cubic foot of material
Disaster Caches (Kansas Historical Society)