 We're on our third webinar for the course Protecting Your Collections, Rating a Disaster Response Plan. And today, of course, we have another great webinar for you, PrEP Side B Action Steps. So as you already know, this is just one course in the series, Caring for Yesterday's Treasures Today, a project that's been made possible by Alora Bush, 21st Century Librarian Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and with help from Learning Times. It looks like we have another great crowd today. We're up to 198 people who are logged in, and I'm just going to quickly share if you ever were curious how we know how many people are logged in. When you enter your first and last name, you show up on our attendance list. So we've got you all here. This meeting is now being recorded. So let me move this back over. And it looks like we're slowly creeping up past 200. So it looks like you all are saying hello, and I'm getting some messages about not having audio. Susan, if you could... Well, it's streaming okay. If you don't have audio, my suggestion is close down of the room and come back in. Try it again. But we do know that the audio is streaming, and the rest of the audience can hear it just fine. Okay, well, I'm going to go ahead and keep going. So keep typing in if you're having difficulty, and we'll try to help you. So keep those hello's coming. And like we did last time, I'm going to ask you not only to say hello, but I also want you to share with the group. If you've started working on a prep or you've begun working on a draft or revising a draft of your disaster plan, I'd like you to share now with the rest of the group what successes you've had or any roadblocks that you might have encountered. We'd love to hear from all of you on how things are coming along. And while you're doing that, let me again quickly review some logistics for the course that should sound familiar at this point. All right, so today is the third webinar, and our next and final course is this Thursday, which I will also mention is my birthday. March 14th at 2 o'clock in the same place. Again, if you're interested in earning a certificate of completion, we ask that you be registered. And if you're receiving our emails after each webinar with a recording, then you're all set. You must also turn in a permission form or plan to turn in a permission form by the end of the course. We ask that you watch these webinars live or because we understand that's not always possible. You watch the recording of each webinar as we send them out. And the final requirement for this course is completing all four homework assignments, which will be posted on the course homepage. Now, everything is due one week after our last webinar, and that is Thursday, March 21st. Of course, everything is posted on the course homepage, so all the homework links, all the handouts and resources. Now, we're really excited, and if you need any more motivation to complete this course and all the homework assignments, in addition to that paper certificate of completion that we send out, we're also awarding optional online credentials or badges for our courses through credley.com. This is what yours will look like if you finish this course. And you can share this on your LinkedIn profile, Facebook and Twitter. And we'll share more about this in the coming days. Now, of course, if you have questions, feel free to email us at infoatheritagepreservation.org. And Julie, it looks like we're getting a lot of feedback right now on how things are coming along. And I'm also going to pull over a poll question that we had. Let's see. And now we just want to know what is the status of your prep site A. And don't be ashamed if you have no progress, just answer honestly. So we have completed, almost complete, started and no progress. And we do have a lot of folks who are saying started. So that's fantastic. Yeah, this is great. I mean, you've only been at it about a week now, most of you. So that's really, that's impressive. All right. So I'm going to pull this over. Thank you guys for responding. And Julie, I'm going to pull over your presentation. And I am now going to move over the say hello here box. And you'll see in its place a moderated chat. So we will approve all your comments as they come in. You'll see your comment twice once when you submit it. And once when we approve it, don't worry, the rest of the group only sees your comment once. So feel free in this new moderated chat to ask questions. If you're having any difficulties, feel free to post them there. And throughout the presentation, feel free to type in questions and we'll hold on and pose them to Julie when we have breaks. All right. Oh, all right. Oh, goodness. Your PowerPoint keeps moving in front of me. It looks like it's set. All right. Thanks, Jenny. Thanks, Jenny. Welcome back, everybody. It's great. It's great to have so many of you participating again. And we really appreciated how much and how many of you are doing the homework. You're taking it seriously and providing great updates on your status. And like I said, most of you have been at it for less than a week. So that's terrific. I wanted to comment on a few of the homework value. Well, I looked at your homework. Let's put it that way. And scan through easily two-thirds of you have been turning in the homework. And so there's quite a bit there. Some of you voice some concern about personal phone numbers being on the prep that has wide distribution. And I understand that. And especially if you're a larger institution, often there is more concern, especially. You can do a separate sheet, an administrative version, basically. If you want to, you can even fold up two preps if they're printed on not very heavy paper into those little Tyvek envelopes. So keep that in mind as a possibility or having some of the home numbers and home emails of administrators maybe on separate little cards so that everyone isn't getting them. But this is a common thought by some different institutions. Someone also asked, do we have to notify people that we put on our prep list to let them know that they are in fact there? Yes, I'd suggest that. Certainly if they're 24-hour numbers or utilities or that kind of thing, that's an important. But if you put board members on or if you put volunteers listed or you have outside of your immediate institution names on there, I would suggest you definitely check with them. I know I'm on different people's lists. I rarely ever get contacted to ask if my phone number is the same, anything like that. So keep in mind also being in contact with folks and making sure things haven't been updated. Some of you said you've been having a hard time getting your supervisor administrative support. I'm going to give you some ideas today about that. So I'll hold that aside. And several of you said that you are going to hold your first disaster team meeting on April 1st. I'm not sure if you're pulling my leg or if you're really going to do it on April Fool's Day, but I thought that was pretty good. Also, I know I like to give workshops on Friday the 13th. I give a lot of disaster workshops on Friday the 13th, and I always think that has a certain ring to it. So that's fine. April Fool's Day, good day to go with it. And lastly, I wanted to summarize a really important concept I want you all to remember. This person said, I have to keep reminding myself that the PREP is a guideline and that I can change whatever needs to be changed for my situation. And thank you for that because I think you do need to keep reminding yourself that this is now your tool to use as you wish. So what we're going to be covering today, I hope you've downloaded the documents for today's webinar. We're going to be looking at the PREP side B and we're going to look at appendices six to nine as supplements to your plan. So it'll be most helpful for you if you have those available printed. Okay, let's take a look. So pull out your PREP template from last week's session and we're going to use it today, so keep it handy. If you haven't already, you may want to download the full 8.5 by 14-inch version and print it. Again, the disaster plan template downloads area. It's green shaded box on the course webinar page. I think it's listed as the first download. So today we're going to go through each of the headers as you see here on the screen and they also run across the top of the PREP actions. Remember, keep modifying PREP. It holds its column shape. You can edit it, change things, eliminate things, add floor plans, images, anything you want to do to customize it. Now I realize this is just a copy of the template. I realize the text is small and you may want to go full screen to see the PowerPoint better if you don't have the handouts printed out. But if you do, you will lose the closed captioning, you will lose the chat. I just want to remind you full screen is a toggle button back and forth to get in and out of it. Everything I'm going to be showing you that is actually tiny on the slide is on your printed handouts for much clearer reference afterwards. I just want to get across the key concepts. I want to intrigue you enough to use the full size handouts for ideas and models. So let's take a more detailed look at the first three columns of the PREP on the action side. Here we have immediate response assessment and communication across the top. And then water response is running along the bottom. Let's take a look at the first column, the immediate response column because this calls out the first notification information. First responders is mentioned first. This is the team use, the term use that relates back to side A on the communications column, we called them first responders via emergency medical police. There's a couple of reminders under the first responders that says ensure that all staff and visitors are safe and accounted for. Remember that's our life safety first. And then it says maintain security of building and collections. That's really a top priority right from the beginning. Remember, you need to secure the building to prevent unauthorized entry. You need security really for both the building and the collections. Now an example, in the event of an earthquake, you may need to prevent people from going back into the building that hasn't been cleared yet. They may want to retrieve their personal items. They may have hurried out and left car keys and purses, etc. But they will not be able to do that until a building has been cleared if there's the potential for damage. So talk with staff ahead of time about this. For security, set up a perimeter around the building or have staff manning each access point. Then the following bullets list institutional contacts, building utilities, these refer directly to the column headers on side A communication. So keep in mind ways to link your action side of the prep with your communications side as you work on this. Now fear not, I'm not going to go through every single bullet here. You're perfectly capable of reading and editing these suggested actions to your specific situation. And the sample templates you have that I've given you already show some great ways to adapt the actions list as well. Now I do want to point out in red I have listed their evacuation site. This is your meeting place. This came up at the last webinar and I greatly appreciate the fact that you caught that this key information was missing from the prep. So please add it. You could also add the evacuation site on a larger site map if you include one, that can be helpful. I've seen a prep where a staff member lived very nearby, an historical society, in just a normal evacuation situation the staff simply met outside the building. No big issue at a predetermined location. But if there was something major or they had to stay out of the building longer they were to meet at the staff member's house. And there was a little map added to the prep with the house address and instructions, which was a great idea. Clear, everybody had it if they were at home. There it was for them to report there. Now you've probably noticed also that water response is running along the bottom of the columns here and it runs over a couple of others. This is because water is such a prevalent risk that often taking fast action can dramatically lessen the impact on the building and the collections. So this is a little series of reminders that's included. Basically it's broken up into the order of action. You start on the left with the more immediate that's saying the obvious things like stop the source of the water or remove materials from the water's path. I know this seems obvious, but in that immediate chaos it really can be helpful to have some very basic reminders. For example, going to the basement. If the water is starting to go in that direction moving things off the floor, covering with plastic, sheeting if the water is coming from overhead. All of these things could save you considerable additional damage. I've seen perhaps where the decision is made to stack all of these water response bullets in one column. That's fine too, whatever works for you. The next column is assessment. These statements and information is relatively self-explanatory. The second bullet though I wanted to point out which says to document with photos, videos, and notes. This is a really important one. It's possible that you may only get into building months and then be delayed from doing further assessment of the damage. This can happen for example if there's a fire with an arson investigation or an earthquake if aftershocks then affect the building more structurally. So do the best you possibly can that first time you get in. To assist with assessment, we'll come back to communications in a minute, but to assist with assessment, I have a handout for you. It's Appendix 6, so let's take a look at that one quickly. During the assessment process you need to be very deliberative and go slowly. The time you spend planning your approach to response and organizing the assessment process is going to determine how well the rest of the response and recovery goes. Now there can be this sense of urgency. We have to race in and save collections. Quite frankly if you weren't in the building originally when something happened to actually stop the water or to move the materials, that initial damage has been done. So now you need to plan where to use the people resources to determine just how bad it is and what your next step should be. So all along the way to your stressing that health and safety which sometimes can be forgotten if we just rush into a situation. So Appendix 6 is an assessment form from the Field Guide to Emergency Response. It's a tool you can use during this process. The first page on the left gives you a way to record the general information about the situation, who's involved, that kind of thing. But I want to call your attention more to the page 2, the Rapid Collections Assessment, which is on the back side. This form is going to help with assessment of the collection damage, the types of materials affected, the numbers involved, priority of those collections, and the urgency of salvage. And this helps you kind of gather and think through how and get a feeling for how much is damaged. You can make multiple copies of this form to have on hand if you want to. One form would be given to each team. Remember teams going in should have at least two people to a team. So each team going in to do an assessment would be handed one of these forms. The point I want to make is it's very important to use a form. You can use one you develop yourself. That's fine. You just want everyone gathering the same information in the same format. Do not send in teams with a blank pad of paper. The result will be a mishmash of information that becomes very difficult to compile. And then you have a hard time determining how much has been damaged or your ability to decide what your priority of action should be. So this form, if you want to develop your own, that's fine. Assessment teams should also be prepared to photograph, videotape, the damage. A video is great. A digital camera is good, but a video can be great because you can provide an oral commentary. You can be saying what you are showing in the image and where the damage is actually located. These digital images can then be immediately downloaded to a laptop for analysis. If it's very dark inside, digital photos with a flash will allow you to see much, much more than you can with a flashlight or under temporary lighting. Video without lighting can be less helpful when it's very dark, so just keep that in mind. So by looking at the completed assessment form, you can then evaluate damage to your priority collections first, make adjustments as necessary based on access to parts of the building. You may not be able to access, say the local history room or the exhibit area. If these were where your priority collections are, then what are you going to focus on next? You have to remain flexible. This is definitely not the time to be talking about collection and other priorities for the first time. It doesn't work when you're standing in water. So with the approximate number of items damaged determined through the assessment, then you can evaluate the number of personnel you're going to be needed, how to proceed, if you need to pull in a disaster recovery company, etc. So it helps you at that point. So let's go back now and look at the column, the communication column, column on the right. We already talked extensively about communications at the last session. And this column just has basic reminders of actions, and you can change whatever. It's pretty self-explanatory, and I'm sure you're going to have others that you're going to want to add. So whatever works for you. Jenny, how are we doing? Do we have some questions? We do. We actually have two questions. The first one is from Kathy. She is curious how much do Tyvek envelopes cost, and can you remind us where you can get those? Yes, the reminder, in fact, is on the bottom of the template prep. It tells you you can order them from the Council of State Archivists, and it gives you their website. Their website is also on the resources handout for this webinar series. And they sell them in little packs, I think, of $10. And I want to say maybe they're around $5. I can't remember exactly. It's a great way to order them if you only need a small number. I think they're in batches of $10. You can also order them from envelope companies, but before a warrant, you have to order hundreds at a time. So that's another option. Okay. And then one more question from Nicole, and it's a great one. She's curious about the written plan. You had mentioned during the second webinar to keep things simple, and she says, however, it seems that we are being given lots of resources and options to use during an emergency. So an example would be your actual written plan saved in a binder and the Heritage Preservation Disaster Resources book, but it seems like having these sources along with a written plan and then all of the appendices, it seems like a lot of different places to have things and could be confusing. She's curious, are these just options? Do they supplement each other? Or if you use everything, will you be overwhelmed by too much information? Well, I think you have to decide on the size of your institution and how much detail you need. I think I mentioned that if you're small, having the field guide, the disaster wheel, the app on any smart phones, and the pocket response plan plus your floor plans will get you a huge long way. And so that may be enough for you. I'm dealing with so many different sizes of institutions here. You have to decide what makes the most sense for you. If you have a red notebook, I think that's a good way to pull things together. If you get the kinds with the pockets, you can put the field guide in the pocket in the front, the wheel in the pocket in the back. You can have a few of the appendices, a copy of your prep plan, and then everybody else has the prep plans. And your floor plans can go in there and you'll just pick and choose from these other appendices. Smaller you can get more and more onto the prep and have fewer standalone appendices. But I know some of you have multiple branches. I mean, you're dealing with even doing multiple prep plans even to go along with it. So this is all your choice. Think flexible. Think what works for you. In keeping in your mind, keep it simple. Keep it as concise as you possibly can. Great. Thank you, Julie. And then just one more that kind of popped up as you were discussing this. Sonya is curious, where would you store a disaster kit? By a disaster kit, do you mean disaster supplies? If you do, we'll talk more about that in session four. If you mean a kit as in a binder plus these other resources, you're possibly going to need multiple copies, one on site, on a shelf, very visible. Another one for key people at home or in their car. So I think you probably mean supplies when you say kit. Hold that thought. We'll be there with session four. That's it, Julie. Thank you. Okay, great. So let's go on to the next couple of columns. On the left again is your template. The two columns for collection salvage and collection priorities. And one final little chunk there of water response is at the bottom of the column. The collection salvage column on the prep is very basic information. This will in fact be a large topic for our last session on Thursday. The supplementary material about collection salvage much more effectively goes into a binder, multiple pages of information that you just refer to quickly based on the type of material that's damaged. So I don't plan to go into more detail right now. I do notice that on the last bullet it says start collection salvage guided by the disaster plan documents and response protocols. And that's the important thing, and that also includes your collection priorities. So that reminds you to shift over to those kinds of documents. What I want to focus on now is the next column for collection priorities. You have kind of four prompts there of the main categories as reminders, a breakout for first and second priorities, and then there is the files and equipment and that all encompassing other category. More about establishing these priorities in a few minutes. But what I want to focus on now is the sample on the right. This is from a small historical society in California. I think the way they have presented their priorities is very effective and may be a way to work for you. I realize again the detail is small on the screen. And on your PowerPoint handout. And I was lamenting this fact over the weekend, and this little light bulb went on in my head. And for those of you that haven't already thought of this, what you can do is open the PDF of the PowerPoint slides handout. You can do this after the session. And then go to the page where this slide image is and then select the display at 200 or 400%. And you will get a good detailed image on the screen. I tried this just to make sure it would work. And so keep that in mind. That's it for my technical tips. But I think this one is a very useful one. So looking at what the historical society has done with the columns on the prep, notice that under collection salvage, they have moved up all the water response to one column. So they pull these off the running across the bottom. And they have, let me see if I can get it, they've stacked the bullets that they felt would be more useful for them. So this is a good idea. You know, make good use of this prep real estate. In the middle column, they very cleverly, I like this a lot, put an image of the disaster response in salvage wheel and they put a note, locate the salvage wheel with supplies. Okay, so a quick reminder when you're getting kind of panicky to go pull that out. Now if you want to get an image of the wheel, just go to the Heritage Preservation website. I've already given you the URL on your resources list. Click and save the image to your own computer. Copy it into the prep and you're set with a nice small visual of this important tool. The right-hand column has their priorities listed kind of three color groupings for first, second, and then files and equipment. What I like about this is they have used and repeated these colors down in the dots. So their first priority in blue are down in the locations where you find their blue dots. And so this is kind of a nice little physical reminder, again, a quick look. So you can do this, you know, they're small, but this I think is a very effective way to do it. So remember that you are going to be using the results of your assessment of damage collections and this list of priorities to then institute your salvage efforts. I have one more example for you with another prep. This is an historical museum on the right. Their first and second priorities, so we'll take a look mainly at what they have here. Their first and second priorities are listed right off very clearly. And then I really like their summary statement that's down here. So they have a list and then they say, first priority items are packed out first unless they are not in danger or it is impossible to access them. Good reminder. Second priority items are salvaged next. All other materials are saved if possible, time and conditions permitting. This is, I think, a great statement and it's a good reminder to whoever is sitting there with a prep trying to implement it. And a lot of times for these historical museums, they are volunteers. They also then have just clear, simple floor plans. These are hand drawn and scanned. You know, your floor plan does not need to be elaborate, just clear enough to be used. I know some of you on the homework said, oh, I'm going to have to work. I'm going to have to find floor plans to work on things. And if you're a big building, it may be much more difficult for you. But I want to remind you that they just need to be clear enough to be used. Now what they've done then also is they've added some photos of some priority collections. They've listed them as one and two. And they put in the pictures and that then relates to what they have listed on their priority list. They also have this nice little reminder to locate the fire extinguisher. And then they have an icon up on the map with the fire extinguisher. So I hope that these two examples are going to give you some more ideas of ways you might incorporate what we've been working on for the prep. So now let's take a look next at Appendix 7. Let me pull that up, which is going to supplement your collection priorities. Now we already looked at ways to outline priorities on the prep. Now we're going to go back and figure out how you determine those collection priorities in the first place. I kind of put the cart before the horse here by showing you the prep first. But I think that is more interesting. Let's put it that way. So now we're going to, okay, I have a lot of priorities. I can't just get things onto the prep. What do I do now? So you have this Appendix 7 along with guidelines. The guidelines are here on the left and the template is on the right. Probably many of you already have written collection salvage priorities for objects, collections, records, anything vital to your institution. That's great. Okay, you don't need to use some new form if you've already got that written down. But for those of you who don't have priorities, this guideline sheet on the left will provide you with some great information to help you put them together. You can assemble a team of people, especially those that obviously have an understanding of the institutional mission and the collection. And you can establish some criteria. Now I want to point out that there is an example of criteria listed over here. The bullets, the information here is from, again, the Field Guide to Emergency Response. So there's some ideas listed there. There are also suggestions for establishing priorities on disaster wheel. There's a bulleted list there. National Park Service in their museum handbook, which is on your resources list. This also has some useful information on establishing parties. You can look at all of these for more detail. Because it's going to depend totally on your type of collection, your mission, et cetera. So take a look. Really, the critical thing is to get something down in writing. And let me give you a little bit more here on this Appendix 7. If you don't have the information, you may find it useful to use this template form. It's a word document, and it's divided up into four categories. On this side we see the two for collections and for bibliographic records. So in thinking about priorities for museum collections, you may be looking at objects and collections that are central to the institution's mandate, the mission, your services, your programs. You may consider items of high historic, scholarly, or monetary value, or objects and collections that are impossible or difficult to replace. For libraries, you may be considering your emphasis in collecting. What do you need to support your current programs? Maybe you have foreign language collections that are very important to your users and they'd be hard to replace. So know the strengths of other libraries in your region or in a network you belong to. What could you get from those other libraries? For example, what could you get through interlibrary loan or use of electronic journals? Usually we think as far as replacement fiction is probably the easiest to replace. So what would be irreplaceable? Consider the format. Wet clay coated paper, if it's allowed to dry, it sticks together and then the pages can't be separated. They'll fuse together. So immediate treatment is critical. Freezing these materials very quickly before they start to dry is critical or interleaving to keep the pages from sticking together. Leather bindings, photographs, mixed media albums like scrapbooks, these need to be treated quickly so they may move up on your priority scheme of things. For bibliographic and accession records include things like inventories, registration records. These are often quite important to the recovery operations and for sometimes identifying the actual location of where some of the collections are. So think of these. Think also of billing records, retention and disposition schedules, inventories, and other electronic backups for these. And where is that backup? Is it stored off-site? Could it also be affected by your disaster? So that just gives you some ideas for this side. We also have the other side, administrative records, and equipment and other administrative would include personnel records. So think through these categories and think what is most important for you to record. Keep in mind that one way you can use these priorities once you have them written down is to look at physically where your priority collections are located in your building and kind of map them. Then look at your assessment of your most likely risks and decide if any of these priority collections would be better off located somewhere else in your building, for instance, out of a basement or maybe not right under the leaky spot in the roof or maybe not back in the far corner where you may not be able to evacuate them if you need to. So talk about these issues, look for improvements that can be made in location and their protective housing, anything proactive you can do through your emergency systems and your early detection. Collection priorities can also be used to determine level of protection when there's forewarning. Stack ranges, objects, these can all be covered with plastic. Materials could be moved out of the basement, off the floor. So keep that in mind as well. And one option for physically marking priorities is that you can use reflective tape similar on files or boxes or shells, something that would glow in the dark even if the power is out. So if you were scanning along with a flashlight or headlight on your hard hat, would it jump out at you where some of these priority things are? Now that's it, we've already talked to about putting on floor maps, but keep in mind in earthquake and some of those flood slides that we saw in the first session, the location of what you identify may not end up being where you think it will be so that red-going tape may be on the shelf, but the items may be scattered. So just keep that in mind as well. But get something down on paper for people to react to. If you only have a small number of materials that are damaged, you're going to likely save them all. So priorities help you when you have to make tough decisions or decide what to take first. So keep that in mind. Any questions at this point? Yeah, Julie, we have a few questions. We have one from Amy in New York. She's curious, for institutions that do have an established salvage priority that includes specific boxes, do you recommend marking the boxes? And if so, what would you recommend marking them with? Well, I did mention the thing about putting something reflective. I have seen some people that have used colored dots or stickers so that they knew that red was a first priority and maybe blue was a second, whatever. That's an option. I assume if you're marking on the outside of the box, you can mark with anything. I'd use something that isn't water-soluble inks, so the markers that will not run so that if the boxes get wet, you don't lose that kind of information. I think there are a couple of other hints on that, guidelines for priorities sheet. Okay, and then Pam had a question. She's curious, would it be better to have a hard copy of your plan the plan also on something like a jump drive or a USB stick? Yes, I think having an electronic version as well is great. I think we talked about in session one that what you don't want to be in the situation where you only have it electronically, you only have it on a server that you may not be able to access. Putting on a jump drive that you can load on to any of the computers, that's a great idea. So any kind of combination like that can work well for you. Okay, and then Nicole had a question. I'm going back to marking priority objects. She says, how do you mark priority objects without damaging the object? And I think we were talking about boxes and storage. Yes, I was talking more about putting them on the outside of a box or marking the outside of a shelf or marking a range of shelving. Going through object by object, you're not in a lot of cases going to be able, you're not going to be pulling things and rescuing things in a situation object by object. You're going to be taking things in chunks in areas. Again, it depends on if you're dealing with something like museum objects. Hopefully in some of your storage areas you are able to identify them fully so that you can find them. Okay, so I think you're asked, I see now something about what if the object is always on exhibit. Well, then it's going to be on your floor plan that that exhibit case or that area where the exhibit is is a high priority. So whatever, describe it. Leave that out that that is a high priority. And that's often the case with artwork that is always on the walls, for example, listing those on your priority list and then saying where they are located. All right, I think that's it, Julie. Okay, good. Let's go on and look at the final column on the prep side B. This includes the incident command system, the ICS structure. And appendix 8 goes with it. It shows in more detail ICS organization chart. This is from FEMA from the Federal Emergency Management Agency website, this flow chart. And the citation for it is given at the bottom of the sheet. In a minute, Jenny's going to ask you a poll question, but first I want to talk just a bit about ICS, Incident Command System. This is a systematic tool used for command and control and coordination of an emergency response. It's integrated into kind of a common organizational structure to improve the emergency response operations no matter the size or the complexity of the incident. And it's based on a flexible, scalable organization, providing kind of a common framework within which people can work effectively together. This has been summarized as kind of a first on scene kind of structure where the first responder on the scene takes charge until the incident either has been resolved or a more qualified responder arrives on the scene. So this is what is used by the emergency management. It grew out of approaches, responses to wildfires and to other big incidences. And it allows for this command and control to keep everyone organized and responding in an effective manner. So first I want to ask that Jenny's going to pull over a little poll. I have a question for you. Have you taken an ICS course either online or in a workshop? These are offered by FEMA online. So I'm just kind of curious to see the percentage. And then maybe Jenny you'll just go on and read that one up and we'll pull over the other one. Has your institution ever used the ICS structure for an immediate response? This is another yes and no approach. So let's just see here. Looks like we're hovering around 10% have taken a course. That's great. And I'll give you a little more information on that. I really highly recommend that those of you in a response role take the basic courses. And then has your institution used ICS for an emergency response? And about 10% of you have done that. So that's terrific. That's terrific too. This is something to learn more about. And that's why it's included on the PREP is kind of as a reminder. To make you aware that in a major disaster you may not have control over your building or even a wider area may have access restricted. First responders may have implemented this emergency, the ICS structure for their own command and control. So the more you understand about it during a response and the more you work ahead of time to establish these relationships with first responders, the more likely you will be able to work with them to save and secure your building and to keep your staff and collections safe. So this ties into that building relations. I will tell you that if some of you are going, I still don't understand what she's talking about. If you want a really quick overview in non-technical terms, go to Wikipedia and search Incident Command System for a good summary of it. And that will kind of give you the overall concepts. Then you can go also the FEMA training website. The link is on the bottom of Appendix 8. It gives extensive information about ICS and that's where you can find about the online self-directed courses. ICS 100 and 200 are the basic courses. They also have more advanced ones, but I really do encourage those of you in emergency response roles to take at least ICS 100 and 200. It's only going to take you a couple hours. It's online and it's free. Best kind of thing to have. Now, to highlight ways in which ICS can be used by cultural institutions and almost 10% of you said you've used that, that is great. There is a fabulous book. It's also listed at the bottom of Appendix 8 and it is on your resources list as well. It is by David Carmichael, Implementing ICS at the Institutional Level, a handbook for museums, libraries, and other cultural institutions. This is a fairly new book. It dramatically brings home the ways in which cultural institutions can use the ICS structure. It includes examples, scenarios, and ways to integrate ICS into your regular training. I really highly recommend it. It's very readable and practical. And it's on a topic that more of us should understand and should implement when we have some sort of event. Using the ICS structure can help us to organize ourselves. Also, on this last little column, and I have it a little bit bigger for you, is the Situation Report. These questions that are on the left-hand side. It's kind of tucked at the bottom of the column. It's very useful to have this information at hand so that you can start compiling it as soon as possible while you're in the process of an immediate response. It is the kind of information that a consultant will ask you if you call them. It's the kind of information in insurance and anyone else working closely on your emergency response needs. So gather the answers to these as you go along. You can put them all onto a larger piece of paper to fill in. Matter of fact, that's how we're used to hand it out. But I like having it right on the prep because it can kind of help guide you. It includes the questions like safety status, hazards. It helps you keep track of who's involved. It even reminds you who's handling the media. Now one final topic that I have been stressing, actually, throughout the webinar is that I want to cover. It's critically important. And that is establishing relationships. And we have Appendix 9, which is Tips for Working with Emergency Responders. This is an excellent overview. It's a two-sided sheet. You have it with your handouts. It helps you look at ways to establish relationships with responders ahead of time and how to engage them during and after an event. So it's kind of broken up into different categories. So I just can't stress how important and beneficial these relationships are. You know, ask these folks, how can we make your job easier when you respond to our site? This is, everyone wants their job to be easier. So for those of you that mentioned in the last homework that you were looking at ways to approach them and to work with emergency responders, look at the questions. Look at the questions here. Contact them and say, could you come over? We want to make your job easier. We want to learn from you to find out how we can better protect our collections, how we can help you when you actually come in to respond to an incident. When they get there, you can start pointing out the location of where your most important collections are and then quite frankly, they will do everything they possibly can to protect them. And when it's safe, you may even be allowed to go in with the responders to make a quick assessment of the damage. So look for ways to work this and pick up on these key ideas. Heritage Preservation has been working with the Heritage Emergency National Task Force and they're sponsoring Alliance for Response. This is a nationwide initiative with the goal of fostering the relationships between cultural institutions and first responders. So you can find out more on the Heritage Preservation website and there are a number of resources you can download from the Alliance for Response section, including this little double-sided tip sheet. If you want to have it in a nicer color, you can download it from there. One thing also in working with the responders, and I know this was mentioned, or I saw it, I think in the chat. I reviewed the chat from session two and there was a little discussion about lock boxes for keys. And you may have something inside where you keep key control over the keys that are inside, maybe into some of your closed areas or your storage areas, et cetera. But also think about the idea of having a lock box on the outside, a key box on the outside of your building. A lot of the big buildings and public buildings have these. They're generally referred to as lock boxes, key lock boxes, or the term has been applied, Knox box, that's K-N-O-X, comes from Fort Knox. I think that's the idea. It's a Knox box. It's a box that is accessible to responders with a special key. And so they can get in, get the key to your front door or whatever. Open your front door, go in and check. Say an alarm has gone off and they're not sure if there's really a fire. They can use that key, get in, check. There's no fire. They can report to you, no fire, and then they can lock the door back up and leave. If you don't have a way for them to access from the outside, they can't determine if there's a fire. Obviously if there is one, you're not going to care quite as much if they break something. You may have to break your door to get in to maybe determine that it was a false alarm. So this is the logic, one of the logics for having the Knox box. They can get quick access right away. So I just wanted to follow up that from chat. So ask them if they come and walk around, ask them about that. Ask them to show you where the lock box is for your building. There may already be one there. There may be one if you're in a shared facility. You may not realize it. So find out about that. Maybe you can add a key to your particular offices or your area into that Knox box properly labeled. I know places too that fold up their pocket response plan and put it into the lock box outside as well. So I wish we had more time now to talk about working with emergency responders and building these relationships. That would be such an important critical thing for you to do. I do want to mention that in session two of the webinar on risk evaluation that was done last month by Alex Allert. In her second session, she talked about building relationships, gave some excellent examples, and she also has resources on the session to resource list for the risk evaluation webinar. So you can go back and you can look at that on the online courses sheet webpage. Okay, that kind of ends my overview of the prep for collections. I want to talk kind of generally about some disaster preparedness topics, but first let's take a look and see what the questions are, Jenny. Sure, Julie. Let's see. We have one question from Amanda. She says, her historic house is full of furniture and delicate artifacts. Would you recommend prioritizing items that are easy to transport in an emergency or things that are more historically significant even if they might be hard to move? That's a great question. I've worked with California State Parks and Wanda Ray at their historic Adobe houses, and what they did for their first and second priorities for the house, it was two stories, they did a map of each floor and then they put images of items that were the highest priority, and I noticed right off that they were all relatively small things, and they said, the piano, in fact, is quite a high priority, but in fact, no one is going to get it moved out in an emergency. So they thought this through, but the point I made to them is but still tell the responders that piano is an important priority because they can throw fire blankets and other protective coverings over things, and so there's kind of a double possibility there. So keep that kind of thing in mind. But yes, obviously, things that can more easily be gotten out and otherwise people just start grabbing what's closest to the door, and what you really want to do is, if you have time, and if you can safely do it, is be able to send them directly to the items that are actually removable. Okay, and then Tina had a question. She says, how do we know if the info we supply to our first responders if that information is getting to all their personnel? Well, this is always a problem because there's a fair amount of turnover, especially at fire stations. One idea is to have them come every year and do walkthroughs and not just a walkthrough where they're looking for potential problems as far as fire code and this kind of thing. They need to do that as well, but it's something where you take them more in depth and show them the collection. Sometimes they will do this where they begin to feel, and the point's been made that it's an important cultural asset in the community. To ask them to bring in their new folks every time they get new firefighters, for example, at a station, to come also to participate in exercises that may be going on. We're going to have a webinar in June on training, and that will include some ideas for ways to integrate with emergency management in regular exercises, trying to tie into something they do. Fire departments also will put your emergency plan, if you provide it to them, especially a pocket plan. They love something like that, and floor plans, right into what are called runbooks on their fire engines. As they're going to a site, they can pull that up, and they can find out any hazards here, what are the issues, and things like priorities, but you have to supply that to them. That's another way. This is again asking how to make their job easier when they arrive at your site. The more you can engage, the more likely they are to keep this information being passed along. Tina had another follow-up question. She says she needs five keys to get back into the collections. Is that many keys feasible for a Knox box? Yes. They come in different sizes. Just make sure they are very clearly labeled in large enough to be seen in the dark. Clearly, somebody doesn't want to be messing through lots of key rings, but that's not a problem. A question. I think we had a version of our last course. Janine is curious if there's training programs to adjust the needs of cultural institutions before, during, and after a disaster for first responders, especially in small communities where they tend to be all volunteers. What I would recommend you do is go to some of the resources for the Alliance for Response section on the Heritage Preservation website. This is a helpful resource. Another one is the Northeast Document Conservation Center is listed on your... Let's see, maybe I have it here separately. No, it doesn't look like. It's listed on your resources list under Regional Alliance for Preservation. NEDCC has a link there to COSTEP. I'm sorry, I didn't include that. Maybe we can get that into your... the cat here. COSTEP is the Coordinated Statewide Emergency Preparedness. This is a program that was developed by NEDCC. It's been implemented in Massachusetts and looked at in some other states, I think are in process of it. And this is a way to integrate and train and get the buy-in from emergency management within communities. Actually, I think smaller communities have a much easier job of doing this than larger communities because they can pretty quickly relate to these important community assets, these cultural collections that are there for their families, their kids. If you're really lucky, their mother or wife actually volunteer at your organization, and then you are good to go. You've got that connection to make it important. So look for ways to just bring them in and to get buy-in. Just give them tickets. Just drop off tickets to your opening or admission tickets to your location or an event that's going on at your library and invite them to come bring their family and get them engaged. So I hope that answers that question. We'll have more about it as far as the training aspect at the session in June. All right, that's it Julie. Thank you. Okay, good. I want to kind of wrap up with kind of an overview of kind of what hinders disaster preparedness because I don't want you to fall victim to what I call disaster preparedness pitfalls. So this can maybe help you to kind of turn this around. I always try to do things in a positive manner but it's important to just realize and some of you may have already seen some of these things kind of thrown in your way as you've started working on your planning. You know, it's psychologically difficult. We're human. It's psychologically difficult to prepare for an event we hope will never happen. We basically operate on a denial type of approach. So just keep that in mind. You're already dealing with a psychologically difficult for people. They'd rather just decide it's not going to happen to us. You know, it can feel overwhelming and working on this. I hope, I haven't overwhelmed you. I hope, you know, breaking this into small chunks. I hope the prep looks to you like something that, well, this isn't overwhelming. This is something I can get going on. You know, it can't happen to us. Yeah, but it can. I mean, we've seen enough. We've heard enough. We know. It's likely if it hasn't already happened it's going to happen sometimes. I like to say, if you think preparedness and planning is overwhelming, just try dealing with a disaster without having prepared. Now, that's my definition of overwhelming. Financial and personnel resources, it will take some. Some may need to be diverted from immediate daily priorities. I realize that is already working hard, wearing multiple hats, just trying to do day-to-day jobs. And there will be the feeling from some people, you know, that isn't my job. It's not my job. I don't need to worry about it. But this big part of this is getting that administrative buy-in. The not a priority. You know, there is a priority. There is a deadline for preparedness actions. It's just that we don't know the deadline, that we will have no warning in most cases. So that's another thing to keep in mind. There is a deadline for getting this work done. Lack of administrative support is a really big one. Administrative support is really critical to successful prevention and preparedness efforts. You need to get that support so personnel and financial resources can be allocated. So if you find yourself needing more reasons to convince your administrators, let's look at a few ways and reasoning that may help you. It helps to minimize damage. It expedites response and recovery, saves time, trouble, and expense. I like this one. It replaces chaos with thoughtful response and recovery. There will always be some chaos, but how quickly you can get going is going to depend on how much you've prepared and trained people for it. And it allows for a prompt resumption of service. Those of you that rely on income from admission say, this may be critically important because if you're closed, you have no money coming in. Resumption of service in academic libraries and other libraries, this is critical for the ongoing nature of the institution and who you are serving. This preparedness will allow for prompt resumption of service. So keep these things in mind and maybe use some of these arguments. Look for ways to give examples and get administrators buying in. Now, under the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000, every local, county, and state government is required to develop and adopt a hazard mitigation plan in order to be eligible for pre- and post-disaster federal funding. So go back and query your city people and find out if this hazard mitigation plan exists and how you can integrate it also into your planning process. And also help with going to administrators and saying, you know, here, look, here's some of our real high risks because they can get you maps, for example, flood maps, this kind of thing. What natural risks for your location are going to be the most likely? And sometimes that can then, you can work with it administrators to say, wow, we are in a flood plain or we have these other issues. If there continues to be reluctance to prepare, you know, focus on what the institution has already done. Maybe the bigger institution has worked on a disaster plan. Then you could argue that you need to have something that fits into it that relates more to your collection. So look at steps that have already been taken to, emergency plan, maps being posted, fire drills that are ahead, staff preparedness actions that have been taken. Build on people emergencies that you've probably already prepared for to then look at the ways to prepare for collections. And then the ringer is, you know, when all else fails, just point out how unacceptable the alternative is. Permanent loss, chaos, and accountability. And that will begin to speak to administrators. Administrators and staff need to be responsible stewards of the collection and its assets. And that, you don't want to read about your institution or be quoted on the front page of the paper when something has gone very wrong. So I hope some of those ways will give you some ideas of ways to get that buy-in, that administrative buy-in, if you haven't already. So with that, I have this little guy. Please don't get too stressed. And Jenny, do we have any more questions or comments that we want to discuss? We don't right now, so I'm going to go ahead and pull over group attendance in the homework. If you guys have questions, feel free to type it in this Q&A pod, and we'll get to it. So I'm going to pull over right now our homework assignment for this webinar, number three. You can follow it at that link. And then, of course, the course homepage is here. And then I'm going to take group attendance right now. So if you didn't log in, enter your first or last name. I'm going to ask that your group leader go ahead and type in everyone in their group so we can mark you down as having been here. Let's see. Maybe I'll mention too that session four on Thursday, we're going to look a little more at health and safety during a response and some of the psychological challenges that go along with it, a response. Also, working with commercial recovery services, disaster supplies and equipment, and some resources to help inform your collection salvage decisions. And that will kind of wrap up our four times. So look forward to seeing you there. And Alex, our instructor in our last course, actually mentioned with regard to training for first responder, she says, what is new to first responders is that museums track collections as they track information for arson and mass casualties. So we do a lot of the same type of tracking that maybe first responders aren't aware of. That's great, kind of speaking their lingo and relating it to something they understand. I remember when we were trying to get a better response from facilities at the university where I was with leaky pipes and different things like this. And we started equating it to what they actually had to do, and when we told them the value of the insured value of our collections, that's when they stood back and took notice because they could relate that cost amount to what it cost for buildings on campus, just the collection, the value of the collection. Look for a way to tie in. To me, that was when the light bulbs finally went on with them and I never would have thought that value would have, monetary value would have finally gotten them on board. So looking for ways like Alex said to remind them the things that we do that are similar to what they do. And we're big into prevention. And if Larry had a question here, she's curious, can you talk about safety issues and sharing the location of important collections? Sure, and this is like putting personal phone numbers on. You may not want everyone to have the list of the priorities on a pocket response plan. These can be done on a separate document and then referred to. So it might on the prep say refer to the collections priorities. It is housed in paper wherever it's located and how it is electronically. Or you might have some just general overall priorities and think in broad terms of what you'd go after first, but special collections, local history rooms, things like that you might not want to actually have red dots out in the public or have them mapped on a map that everybody can go straight to a drawer. Sadly, a lot of fast and cultural institutions is insider best. And that's those working in the institutions or volunteering or student employees. So just keep that in mind. Absolutely. You need to think what will work for you. All right, Julie, I think that's all the questions we have. Did you have anything else to add for today? I think that's it. It's been a good session. I look forward to seeing your homework for today's session. Reviewing that and see if there are any questions that we can approach next time. We have a lot to cover next time. I promise you it will be a lot more, some more slides and visual images and hopefully engage you some more. Well, on that I will just remind you that the final class is Thursday, March 14th at 2 o'clock in the same spot. And again, you have the link to the homework and the course homepage. Thank you guys for joining us and have a fantastic afternoon.