"Ready — Or Not": Cultural Heritage Disaster Preparedness Project

Press release

California Grants Portal
See Portal ID 8843, https://www.grants.ca.gov/grants/ready-or-not-cultural-heritage-disaster-preparedness/

Emergency Preparedness among Cultural Organizations in California

California is home to one of the most diverse and expansive cultural collections in the world. These photographs, books, diaries, manuscripts, pieces of art, and other artifacts are the primary keepers of local and tribal history and art.

In 2020, the California State Library and its cultural heritage partners embarked on the California Cultural Collections Protection Survey, which gathered information about the state of California’s cultural heritage collections and the extent to which institutions prioritize, plan for, and resource collection protection. The survey data estimated 1,200 cultural collection-holding organizations lacked disaster preparedness plans. Many of these collections are at grave risk of disasters, including natural events such as earthquakes or floods, as well as human-caused emergencies or threats.

Project Summary
In response to the results of the California Cultural Collections Protection Survey, the “Ready – Or Not” Cultural Heritage Disaster Preparedness (press release) project is a three-year initiative to assess emergency preparedness at California organizations that care for cultural and historic resources (e.g., archives, libraries, museums, and tribal nations). A team of heritage preservation consultants conducts on-site visits for participating organizations and delivers a summary report that documents the organization's current state of emergency preparedness. The report includes recommendations to guide the organization through a process of identifying and mitigating risks, taking emergency preparedness actions, and completing a disaster response plan.

The consultants give advice as organizations work through the recommendations to write their disaster plans, and consultants follow up to monitor and encourage each organization’s progress in completing its disaster plan.

At every stage, organizations are expected to carry out their emergency planning internally and follow their usual procedures (e.g., securing Board approval or involving stakeholders from across the organization). The planning process itself is crucial to emergency preparedness, as it encourages communication, documentation, and collaboration—all of which are important skills for successful disaster response. 

Having taken these steps, each organization is better prepared to protect its unique collections in the face of a range of emergencies such as wildfire, earthquake, flood or mudslide, pipe break, extended power outage, pest infestation, terrorism, unexpected closure, and public health emergency. This, in turn, ensures that California’s cultural heritage is preserved into the future as part of the historical narrative of the state and its people. In addition, the summary assessment report, self-completed disaster plan, and preparedness actions demonstrate an organization's commitment to preservation and can be used to support applications for grants and other funding that may be available to strengthen collections care and emergency preparedness. 

An emergency preparedness consultant travels to each site for a full-day consultation (9am-4pm). The agenda includes an introduction and discussion of emergency preparedness goals, followed by a 3-hour Q&A session on past incidents, current practices, and risk assessment. After lunch, there is a facilities walkthrough, and a wrap-up meeting for final questions, impressions, and next steps. If the walkthrough takes 2-3 hours, a full-day is suitable for your organization.

An emergency preparedness consultant can visit for a half-day (10:00am to 2:30pm). The agenda has a flexible schedule but is meant to include a 3-hour Q&A session on past incidents, current practices, and risk assessment. There is a brief facilities walkthrough. If the entire building, including cultural heritage storage, can be seen in 30-60 minutes during the walkthrough, the half-day option is suitable for your organization. If some staff or volunteers are present for part of the day, the schedule can be adjusted to meet their availability.

Yes, if you are a multi-site organization that holds several locations under one entity, we can plan to visit each site. Please provide the number of branches, buildings, or offsite storage locations to be assessed. This will help us schedule one or more days for site visits to cover all locations. We will tailor the consultation schedule to accommodate your organization's needs.

We encourage attendance from as many staff and volunteers as possible, particularly those in Collections, Facilities, and Operations, during the consultation. If some individuals need to arrive or leave mid-day, the consultant will adjust the agenda to accommodate their participation. For instance, if the facilities manager can only join for an hour, we will prioritize covering facility-related questions and walkthroughs during that time. If your team is small (one or two members), we still encourage as many people as possible to attend and actively participate in the disaster planning process, including the site visit consultation and assessment.

YES! "Ready – Or Not" encourages small organizations to participate. We work with your small organization to determine what your disaster planning needs are and how much capacity your staff or volunteers have to carry out recommended actions.

The discussion focuses on past incidents, current practices, and risk assessment for building, collections, and human safety.

The Emergency Preparedness Assessment Report provides observations and recommendations for various areas, such as business continuity, IT security, physical building security, protection of collections, facilities risk mitigation, water and fire protection, and human safety. The report, tailored specifically to your organization, includes best practices and actionable recommendations to minimize risks, plan and prepare for disasters, and effectively respond. Additionally, the report includes an Appendix with valuable resources to support your organization's disaster plan.

You receive an Emergency Preparedness Assessment Report about two weeks after your site visit consultation.

We encourage organization staff or volunteers to review our Emergency Preparedness Assessment Report and make any factual corrections within three months of the visit.

What it is:

• A concise emergency resource that can be tucked in your pocket or stored on your device for immediate access to emergency contact information and emergency response actions.
• A template that your arts or cultural organization, of any size or type, can easily customize, update, reproduce, and distribute.
• An initial element of your more detailed and holistic preparedness plan. It’s a great place to start, and a great exercise to get your team engaged in thinking about emergency planning in a way that’s approachable and that quickly results in a useable document.

What it’s not:

• It is not a readiness, emergency, or disaster plan. A plan is a combination of documents, processes, policies, trainings and drills that has been developed by an internal team and is familiar to all key staff and volunteers.
• It is not a replacement for training and drills for staff and volunteers who may need to immediately respond to an emergency. Preparing and training provide the ‘muscle memory’ to swing into action right away.
• It is not the place to stop! Visit https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/disaster-assistance/ for more information and resources to build out your complete preparedness plan.

How to fill it out:

1. Less is more. You may be tempted to load this document with information that seems convenient to include. Don’t! Users must easily find exactly the information they need in the critical minutes and hours after an emergency. And, adding too much information will expand the document to three pages.
2. Based on your particular computer, device, or operating system, the PRR may display differently. You may need to make some minor adjustments to ensure your PRR covers only two pages.
3. Fill out a separate Pocket Response Resource for each of your buildings/locations.
4. Consider security. You may need to include sensitive information in this document, which can be risky in wide distribution. (Examples include personal contact information, institutional financial and security information, facility access points and security details, etc.)
5. If your organization has multiple facilities/buildings on a campus/complex, staff from each facility should work together. Complete those items which are common across the organization, including the institutional contacts and responses, and then tailor the remainder to specific locations.