Talking and Doing About Emergency Preparation

Every May the Smithsonian Institution Archives participates in MayDay: Do One Thing for Emergency Preparedness! Each MayDay archives, libraries, museums, and arts and historic preservation organizations around the world are encouraged to help protect cultural heritage from disasters, by setting aside time to become prepared for an emergency. We encourage you to make sure your institution is prepared!

This year we celebrate this important event by launching a brand new Smithsonian Institution Archives Flickr photo stream featuring images of the Archives’ everyday activities. Our first ever set on the Archives’ new Flickr account features images of basic emergency response for paper-based collections.

These images come from a workshop conducted in 2011 by the Archives’ fantastic summer intern, Jessica Lapinsky, in which archivists and collections managers at the Smithsonian had a chance to get their hands wet and experiment with different recovery techniques. Jessica has since gone on to deliver lectures and workshops at the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science on emergency planning and recovery. You can see the slides or download the audio from Jessica’s workshop on the University of Illinois website.