Australia’s archives, galleries, libraries, museums and heritage places are gearing up for the national MayDay campaign in a bid to protect the nation’s heritage from avoidable disasters. The campaign – beginning 1 May 2009 – is organised by Blue Shield Australia.

….“Being prepared to respond takes time and thought in advance. Too often, we devote our attention to tasks with more immediate payback.  Not enough of Australia’s cultural organisations have disaster plans and for those that do, the plan may be out of date”

 In keeping with the theme of the day here are some handy links to online resources for Disaster Managment:

Quick disaster information reference page

• State Records NSW Government Recordkeeping section has designed a web page for NSW Public offices to provide quick access to information about managing disasters. There are sections on managing a disaster, managing recovery, damaged records and what to do before a disaster strikes.

Disaster preparedness for community groups

• If you are a community group the National Library of Australia has produced – Preserving Australia’s Documentary Heritage: A Starter kit for Community Groups, which contains fact sheets on preserving and storing your collection and how to prepare for a disaster.

Disaster training Workshop

• If you are a NSW Public Office you may be interested in the De-Dramatising Disasters training course that is offered jointly by the State Library of NSW and State Records NSW. This is a two day workshop that introduces methods to prevent disasters and respond quickly and efficiently to disasters that occur.

Information on records salvage

• The Australian Society of Archivists has made available an excerpt on records salvage from it’s publication Keeping Archives.

Conservation Tips

• Last but not least  here at Archives Outside are some Conservation Tips from our Senior Conservator Elizabeth Hadlow (who also wrote the section on records salvage in the link above.):
  Conservation Tip No 1: Sticky Tape Removal
  Conservation Tip No 2: Storing large documents, maps and plans
  Conservation Tip No 3: Removing blood from paper documents
  Conservation Tip No 4: A method of Rehousing Glass Plate Negatives