“It All Happened So Quickly”
Arts, Electronics, and Changes in the Disaster
Preparedness Environment
Tom Clareson
Senior Consultant for Digital & Preservation Services
LYRASIS
NJCAR Statewide Summit
September 9, 2015
Today’s Topics
• Changes in:
– The National Approach to Emergency
Preparedness and Response
– Working with the Arts Community
– Working in the Digital/Electronic Environment
A Time of Transition
• Heritage Preservation Offices closed 4/30/15
• Heritage Preservation dissolved as Private Non-Profit (PNP) on
6/30/15 following member vote
• Transition of programs to FAIC:
– Connecting to Collections Care Online Community
– Alliance for Response
– State Heritage Emergency Partnership
– Risk Evaluation and Planning Program
– MayDay Campaign
– Awards Programs
– Digital Resources for Save Outdoor Sculpture and Rescue Public
Murals to FAIC CoOL
A Time of Transition
Transition planning continues for:
• Heritage Emergency National Task Force
• Conservation Assessment Program: IMLS maintains its
commitment to the services provided by the Conservation
Assessment Program, and will be announcing future grant
award plans to support this type of technical assistance in
the coming months.
• Heritage Health Information 2014: Remaining
deliverables and work products for the HHI project will be
managed by IMLS.
Disasters in the Arts Community
Working with the Arts
Community
• Interest from:
– Federal Funders
– Private Foundation Funders
– Collecting Institutions/Museums
– Performing Arts Centers/Theaters/Dance
Organizations
– Organizations without a facility
– Individual Artists
– Galleries and Collectors
Arts Organizations in a Disaster
• Example: Theater
– May not be a collecting institution with objects
– However, will likely have archives/records
management for business and financial activities, or
the history of the organization
– What will be the disposition of the costumes, sets,
and building/venue after a disaster?
– Most of the work may be in preparedness and loss
of business/recovering from lost revenue
– Need Continuity of Operations/Business Continuity
assistance and training
Similarities to other Cultural
Heritage Organizations
• When talking with colleagues about this
issue, found many commonalities with
Public Libraries (Ports in a Storm
Conference)
– Arts organizations acting as a community
resource
•Powering/charging sources
•Community information centers
•A resource for community healing
Assisting other arts
constituencies
• What can we do to assist arts organizations
without a facility? Can we offer our facilities
(libraries/archives/museums) for temporary
use?
• How can we assist individual artists affected by
disasters? Can they use our computers,
electricity? Can we identify or provide
workspace?
• “LAMS” becoming “GLAMS” – working with
Galleries and Collectors
Some initial work
• We need to work to bring arts organizations into
the statewide and national emergency
preparedness and recovery discussion
• Much of our basic language (EMA, ICS, EOC)
may be new to the arts community
• Many arts organizations may not have disaster
plans and policies
• Preparing for other incidents that might
constitute an emergency: burglary, executive
health issues, fire, financial impropriety
Learning about disaster recovery
from the Arts Community
• SouthArts: http://www.southarts.org/
• ArtsReady: https://www.artsready.org/
• National Coalition for Arts’ Preparedness and
Emergency Response (NCAPER):
http://www.giarts.org/group/artsfunding/emergency-readiness-response-and-recovery
• CERF+ (Craft Emergency Relief Fund/Artists
Emergency Resources): http://craftemergency.org/
• CultureAidNYC: http://cultureaidnyc.com/about-us/
Challenge/Discussion 1:
• How can NJCAR and Alliance for Response
groups nationally expand to incorporate the
arts community in collaborative disaster
planning and recovery exercises?
Dealing with Digital
Disasters
One Library’s Approach to
Superstorm Sandy Recovery
After Sandy…
• We learned that many analog/artifactual
collections in some sectors of the cultural and
creative communities – particularly arts and art
galleries – were devastated by the incursion of
waters from Sandy.
• In the library community, through disaster
planning and preparedness and collaborative
recovery, some organizations were able to keep
their digital collections safe/back online soon
after waters receded.
Case Study: Medical Library
• Sandy struck the Library on Oct. 29, 2012,
flooding the basement and lower level of the
facility
• Much of physical collection was already in
offsite storage (due to space needs –
especially student study space)
• Onsite collection was destroyed, salvaged,
refrigerated, or stored in another off-site
location
Digital Collections
• Library had begun shutting down servers two
days before the storm made landfall
• Systems were managed remotely by IT staff
working offsite
• When the storm hit, e-mail and phone
systems went down, generators were
disabled, and even security card readers
malfunctioned
Disaster Planning and
Mitigation
• The Library did not have a formal/
comprehensive written disaster plan for their
digital collections …
• … but they had collaborated with institutional IT
staff to develop “elaborate plans for the
handling of outages”
• Even before the storm hit, planning was
underway to relocate important library servers
to a remote, safe, and secure data center in
New Jersey
The Damage Done
• “No humans could get near some of the servers
and digital collections for several months”
• 65-70 computers and printers damaged by the
storm were moved offsite, but even a year later,
there was still no place to return them to
• 18-24 months from the time Sandy hit until the
physical library could reopen
• Digital library back in full operation 11 days
after Sandy hit
Planning for the Future
• The organization became “a total digital library
overnight”
• “Given a sufficiently harsh environmental
disaster, a digital library can recover much
faster than a physical library can”
• “It’s pretty easy to knock a digital library offline,
but with normal attention it’s back online
quickly. If you knock a physical library out, it
can take months, or years, to recover, if it
recovers at all.”
Three Factors for
Quick Recovery
• “Have the systems you need as secure and
safe as you can make them”
• “Cultivate an intelligent, dedicated, and
creative systems staff”
• “Stay positive and be ready to communicate
and motivate under dire and stressful
circumstances”
Challenge/Discussion 2:
• How can NJCAR and individual cultural
heritage institutions expand their disaster
plans to include their electronic resources
and digital collections?
Resources
• Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO):
http://metro.org/
• New York State Library and Archives – Barbara and Maria!
• New Jersey State Library: http://www.njstatelib.org/
• LYRASIS and Regional Emergency Response Network
(RERN):
https://www.lyrasis.org/LYRASIS%20Digital/Pages/Preserv
ation%20Services/RERN.aspx
• Foundation of the American Institute for the Conservation
of Historic and Artistic Works (AFR and AIC-CERT):
http://www.conservation-us.org/publicationsresources/disaster-response-recovery/aiccert#.VedNFZcg1HM
Questions and Feedback?
Contact Information:
Tom Clareson
Senior Consultant for
Digital & Preservation Services
800.233.3401 or
614.439.1796
tom.clareson@lyrasis.org