Natural disasters, local emergencies, and other disruptive events can have devastating effects on all sizes of performing arts organizations. This webinar will focus on mitigating risks at institutions, to prevent disasters from happening and to reduce the impact of unavoidable disasters. The session will clarify the need for risk assessment as a part of an organization’s disaster preparedness strategy, provide basic information on risk assessment tools and practices, and address how risk assessment can benefit performing arts organizations. The instructor will also present case studies as a part of the session, so participants can learn from actual disasters in performing arts organizations.
Instructors
Frances Harrell is the Lead Consultant for Myriad, a consulting group serving libraries, archives, museums, and private collectors. She is an independent archives professional with over ten years of experience working with cultural heritage organizations. She has spent the larger part of her career helping libraries, archives, and museums achieve their preservation goals through consulting and training in paper, photograph, audiovisual, and digital collections. She has served the preservation field in many professional leadership roles, including as Co-Chair of ALA's Preservation Outreach Committee, Co-Chair of ALA's Digital Preservation Interest Group, Chair of SAA's Preservation Section, as well as serving on the Program Committees for the PASIG conference and the New England Archivists conference. She has presented workshops and sessions for professional associations and individual organizations throughout the country. Frances received her MLIS with a focus in Archives Management at Simmons College and her BA in English Literature from the University of Florida.
Annie Peterson (she/her) is a Program Leader at LYRASIS. She coordinates LYRASIS Learning and teaches classes on preservation, digitization, and other topics related to cultural heritage institutions. Before joining LYRASIS, Annie Peterson was the Preservation Librarian for the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane University. Previously, she was an IMLS Preservation Administration Fellow at Yale University, where her primary focus was writing a disaster plan for the library’s high density storage facility. Her background in library and archives preservation provides a strong basis for assisting LYRASIS members with their preservation and digitization projects. She has an MLIS from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. In 2016 Annie was awarded the Esther J. Piercy Award from ALCTS, an award that is given to recognize the contribution to areas of librarianship included in library collections and technical service by a librarian who has shown outstanding promise for continuing contribution and leadership.
