Disaster Planning: Monitoring Collections during Adverse Conditions

When:  May 26, 2022 from 03:00 PM to 04:00 PM (ET)

Being able to monitor your collections during “normal” times can be challenging. Monitoring your collections and recovering from adverse conditions can be far trickier.

 Patrick McCawley, the Supervisor of the Archival Processing Unit at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History will discuss what happened when the department suffered a HVAC failure that resulted in a water leak that impacted several series of archival records.  The need for quick action and the accompanying chaos exposed both the strengths and weaknesses of the agency’s disaster recovery plan.  Identifying, prioritizing and implementing recovery efforts took a dedicated team effort.

 Jennifer Simmons, Research Desk Supervisor for the Colorado State Archives, will discuss how they continued to provide necessary public access to records during the civil unrest and protests of summer 2020 at the Colorado Capitol building, located a city block away from the State Archives.

 Todd Topper, Manager of the Collections Management department at the Minnesota Historical Society will present and discuss how his staff monitored areas and addressed critical needs during the 2020 COVID pandemic shutdown, civil unrest related to the murder of George Floyd, staff furloughs, and layoffs.


#CoSAWebinar