Disaster Preparation, Response and Recovery

Earthquakes and structural damage

Fortunately, few earthquakes in Australia since the 1989 Newcastle quake have been strong enough to cause damage or loss of life in Australia. We are all however familiar with the destruction caused by earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan in recent years. Areas of Australia have experienced earthquakes and other events capable of causing structural damage to buildings.

Case studies

2010 and 2011 - Christchurch earthquakes

• The Impact Of An Earthquake On Christchurch Libraries / Bernice Gregan
• Christchurch City Libraries information
• Wikipedia article on the 2010 Christchurch earthquake

2001 - Orange City Library

The Orange Regional Library/Gallery (ORLAG) building is a purpose built, award winning structure opened in 1986. It comprises two wings; one dedicated to the visual arts and the other to library services. The ground floor of the library wing is home to Orange City Library while the first floor houses the administrative functions of Central West Libraries, of which Orange is a member.

Over the Easter weekend in 2001 we were poised to move the compactus stack from the ground to the first floor. We anticipated no difficulties as the compactus had occupied this space for five years after the building's construction and the original plans showed the area dedicated to this use. Thankfully council's works foreman had a gut feeling that all was not well, an instinct which he followed up. To the amazement of us all, the first floor was found to be totally inadequate for the loads it was expected to bear.

Within 24 hours of the findings, 75% of the collections had been packed and moved to storage with the remaining shelves and furniture re-positioned over the beams. The very speedy decision as to what to pack was based on 'uniqueness', if we could get it from another source it went into storage. With hindsight this demonstrated that we had previously adopted a 'just in case' philosophy as there was very little that we missed during the ensuing two years.

Over the next 12 months there were lengthy consultations about the best way to address the issue. Eventually it was decided to gut the ground floor and rebuild the first floor from below. This in turn necessitated closing Orange City Library to the public for six weeks however the library's administrative units needed to operate as normal to support our other six branches.

As luck would have it we'd been through a similar exercise in 2000 when we closed the Orange City Library for two weeks to undertake a major refurbishment and so we built on this experience when developing our strategy.

• The loan period was extended so that no items were due during the closure. Clients were encouraged to borrow additional materials with many availing themselves of this opportunity. While items could be returned during the closure using the after-hours chute, most clients chose to retain the items until the library re-opened resulting in substantial transactions during this period.
• We encouraged our clients to visit our other branches and led by example, taking our housebound and library bus users on a social outing to several of these. To meet demand at these locations we boosted their collections for the duration of the closure.
• Each day we parked a trailer of donated materials outside the library as a book exchange. This was extremely popular, especially with many of the contractors working on the building.
• An enhanced telephone and email reference service was made available, however as the repairs were timed to coincide with the end of the academic year this was not extensively used.
• We offered Storytime in a range of other Orange City Council venues and facilities including child care centres, parks, and the Council Chambers (Storytime with the Mayor). All of these paled into significance against a Bob the Builder Storytime at the works depot complete with tractors, diggers and excavators.

From the day we confirmed we had a problem, communication with all our stakeholders was a key priority. Through a carefully crafted strategy we were able to turn a disaster into a brilliant promotional exercise which saw us given a NSW Public Libraries Marketing Award!

Every aspect of this project was a team effort with staff (library and council) and contactors working hand in hand to ensure a positive outcome for the community.

We would like to add case studies and examples of best practice from libraries around Australia where staff have faced emergency situations and can share what they have learnt with library colleagues. If you have something to contribute, please contact disasterrecovery@alia.org.au.

Contact

For further information or inquiries about disaster recovery, please call ALIA National Office
Phone: 02 6215 8222
Email: disasterrecovery@alia.org.au