Literature on preparing for and handling of library disasters is steadily growing. This slim volume is something of a departure from the typical how to write a disaster preparedness procedure manual. In one sense, this is a series of snapshots of the nightly news broadcasts reporting on disasters around the world over the past ten years. “Managing information for disasters: … International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Africa” by Linda Stoddart draws on various disastrous events in East and Southern Africa during the 1990s which gets the volume off on the different track. It is also the closest to a “how‐to‐do‐it” essay in this collection. Even her approach is different in that much of the content deals with managing and providing information about disasters and their management rather than managing a disaster in an information centre/library. Her lead sentence in the summary section illustrates the different approach – “The right information and rapid communications can save people’s lives” (p. 26).
Five of the contributions deal with war or civil unrest and their impact on information services from several perspectives. John Dean’s contribution examines the problems associated with rebuilding collections after periods of war or civil unrest. In this case, he deals with Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam and the problems associated with preserving palm leaf and parabaik manuscripts and other rare and fragile materials. He also discusses what Western libraries can and cannot contribute to that work. John Gray’s approach to disasters and information service takes yet another tack. He outlines the efforts of Linen Hall Library (Belfast) to create and maintain a collection documenting the 30 plus years of civil conflict in Northern Ireland. One of the key points in the essay is the need to remain independent of the politics, if at all possible, and to collect in a manner that represents all points of view. Resoum Kidane’s piece is similar in its time span – 30 years. However his focus is on how one attempts to maintain information services during a war (Eritrea, 1961 to 1991). Unlike the Northern Ireland case this covers how information services and communications assisted the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front party and army. “Imprisoned information: the case of the Palestinian occupied territories during the Intifada and beyond” by Diana Sayej‐Naser tells the story of how people and institutions attempted to maintain some semblance of free access to information during a period when censorship was a powerful presence and confiscation of printed materials common. Overall her primary concern was with problems for educators and journalists and their role in providing information. “Sarajevo: coping with disaster” by Sava Peic and Aisa Telalovic provides an overview of the consequences to and recovery efforts of libraries as a result of war in Bosnia‐Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995.
The remaining essays examine other types of natural and human generated problems for people as well as information services. A topic seldom addressed in library disaster literature is that of staff support in the period after a workplace traumatic event. Maj Klasson explores the “Psychological efforts of the Linköping fire” that was intentionally set by a pyromaniac in the city’s central library late in 1996. Staff psychological issues ranged from depression to rage and the not too surprising sense of loss of place. A somewhat surprising outcome was a sense of being worthless. While the library staff had the greatest psychological stress the article makes clear the entire community suffered a major blow to its self‐image. Two essays provide a perspective on the major floods in Poland that occurred during the summer of 1997. A major flood hit the area of Lower Silesia affecting many towns and cities and their libraries. Bozena Bednarek‐Michalska reports on the activities of the Nicholas Copernicus University Library serving as the region’s flood relief headquarters. Andrzej Nowakowski’s article describes how the Poznan University Library, one not impacted by the flood, dealt with seventeenth and eighteenth century water damaged materials from affected libraries. It is one thing to make decisions about one’s own materials in such a situation and quite a different matter when engaging in recovery activities on behalf of someone else.
Nuclear disasters are also part of this collection and V.S. Lazarev describes the efforts in Belarus to overcome the lack of available scientific information to assist in handling the Chernobyl catastrophe. An interesting element in this piece dealt with the general populations’ lack of confidence in newspaper reports. They were aware of the censorship imposed on all information about the event through 1989. When the censorship was lifted people thought of the new material as a second wave of misinformation rather than providing facts and “real” information.
The final two contributions by Marie‐Thérèse Varlamoff and Paul Sturges look at the role international organisations, such as IFLA, in dealing with disasters and the need for the world information community to take an active part in the coping process.
This is indeed an interesting and informative collection of essays addressing topics seldom covered in information service literature. The number of essays looking at war and civil unrest is a grim reminder that we are not as civilised as we all too often think we are. Well worth the time to read and hopefully ponder the messages contained in this slim volume.
