A Different Type of Disaster

This year has been an interesting one. It has not been a good one in terms of disasters for South Carolina records but as we close out the year, we are being confronted with a different type of disaster. The state is facing serious financial woes and the effects are already being felt with regards to records. How can you best preserve with no budget for folders or boxes? How can you follow proper protocol when records managers are losing their jobs and the turn over is so great? How can you meet the standards for storage environment when you are barely keeping the doors open?

Although this disaster doesn't look like it is going to be ending anytime soon, we must all do our best to salvage what we can and work with what we are given. Perhaps the biggest lesson of all disaster preparedness is being able to be flexible, to roll with whatever comes your way. Although it is hard to maintain that flexible outlook when you are looking at mandatory furlough days and loss of jobs- strive for the best you can- the records deserve our attention.

I hope that the holidays are fantastic for everyone and that the New Year finds us all still employed and thriving despite belt tightening and frustration.

Just this week I had the opportunity to revisit the sight of one of the biggest disasters I have been involved with. The Lancaster County Courthouse was the victim of arson in August 2008 and although the gutted 1828 structure speaks volumes about the architecutural gem that it is, it is the burned out photos that haunt me. Notice the filing cabinet on the left and right of the judge's bench- records in the middle of disaster and yet, nothing can be done. I had a call last week regarding a debate about installing a sprinkler system in a records room... I think that this image should prove beyond a doubt that if you can use fire suppression, do it! The motto for preservation folks is that you can salvage a wet record but you can't do a thing for a burnt one. As everyone is heading out for Thanksgiving celebrations, I am thankful that my repository has been lucky and dodged the disaster bullet thus far and my thoughts go out to those dealing with the aftermath of fire, flood, sewer backups and all the other hazards out there affecting our records.

First Attempts at Blogging...

Well, this is my first attempt to get with it, be hip, and join the world of blogs and bloggers. Wish me luck! This could all turn out to be a disaster, but hey, that is what this blog is all about.

My job puts me in the know of records at risk and unfortunately, records wrecked by disaster. So my goal for putting together this blog is to create a forum, a hotbed of information if you will for records managers, archivists, and paper preservers to learn about disaster planning and preparedness, recovery, hazards and the like. We all learn from each other and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. We can just tap into the wondeful network of colleages and peers that is out there to find out what worked or didn't work for them with regards to being the guardians of information, protectors of paper and disaster defenders.

I hope that this experiment into the wonderful world wide web and land of blogs will be a new and different way to discuss disasters and look forward to the adventure of it all.