>> Thank you, Jennifer.
Thank you very much to Webjunction for hosting me today.
We -- I have a really, really full program here for you.
I hope I get through it all in an hour, so I'm going to talk a little bit fast, which is no problem for East Coast people, especially from the Philly-New York area.
Jennifer, I'm going to try to keep my eye on the chat box for questions, but if I'm missing something, please feel free to cut in somehow and let me know that there's something I need to address.
When disaster strikes, where do you go?
Well, after hurricane sandy hit New Jersey in late October 2012, people went to their local library.
Many community libraries were pressed into service as sort of ad hoc disaster recovery centers.
And even though they may have sustained great damage to their own buildings and were without power themselves, library -- librarians rallied and were in the forefront of providing services and information to those in need, and a respite from the storm for shattered communities.
So unless they were damaged by flooding, New Jersey libraries were open.
And were the place that residents flocked to the morning after sandy passed to use computers, to use free wireless, to begin putting their lives back together, to conduct business, to work quote from home, to contact relatives, to let them know they were okay and to contact their insurance companies, fill out FEMA forms, or just to power up their devices and warm up, it was especially the cold the end of that October.
So libraries in New Jersey truly served their community as ports in a storm, even though many were not prepared to serve in this capacity as these unofficial community disaster recovery centers.
And because of this, the New Jersey state library organized a statewide summit that we called ports in a storm.
We held it in the spring of 2013.
And it was the first conference of its kind that was presented to help libraries prepare to be even better partners in community disaster response and recovery when the next emergency strikes.
We partnered with the national network library of medicine on that conference, and it was attended by 125 librarians, including representatives from New York, Delaware, and Virginia.
And the goal of the summit was to bring medical and public librarians together with the emergency planning community, first responders, public health workers, and faith-based community groups and to provide a forum for discussing the roles libraries and information professionals play in supporting disaster preparedness response and recovery efforts.
This same scenario has been repeated many times now, and we didn't certainly didn't start it, and it's been in many states, whether it's a natural disaster like the hurricanes, or fire, mudslides, and floods, whether they're man made disasters like chemical spills, or a train wreck, or civil unrest like a shooting in the library, or even the current opioid epidemic.
And I know that these concerns are all why you're listening be today.
So therefore, my goal is to promote the role of libraries as partners in disaster response and to give you some tools so that you can start to think about what you can do in your own facility and in your own community.
I'm going to tell you about what some of our libraries did after super storm sandy to demonstrate how libraries are assets in a disaster, and to give you some ideas on what you -- what is available to do in your own community.
I'm going show you all the resources we've made available for your use and we'll talk a little bit about preparing your facility for disaster, but I will mostly focus on the library's role in the community after a disaster.
And what that means, your partnerships, elected officials, emergency responders, and other groups that are active after a disaster.
I'll call your attention to the photograph, that's one of our libraries in Burlington county, so that's a real photo after sandy that happened, and according to the Red Cross, the number one emergency call during sandy was from people who needed to plug things in to stay alive.
Ventilators, CPAPs, oxygen, things like that, and they came to the library.
I'm trying here to go to the next slide, and I might need a hint, because it's not advancing.
>> Okay.
So it's the little teeny tiny arrow to the right of the box that says "one" at this point.
There's a set of arrows on either side of that box.
>> I see it.
>> Good.
Excellent.
>> There we go.
Okay.
All these webinars are different, so I have to get my bearings.
So first I want to call your attention to the Stafford disaster relief and emergency assistance act.
This is a federal law designed to bring federal natural disaster assistance for state and local governments in carrying out their responsibilities to aid citizens.
Section 403 of the Stafford Act was changed several years ago, so that libraries are now designated as essential services, and are therefore eligible for temporary relocation funding during major disasters and emergencies under the FEMA public assistance program.
So prior to this, FEMA's list included facilities for police, fire, emergency services, medical  care, education, utilities, but not libraries.
So libraries are a vital information hub, and in the aftermath of a disaster, they take on an even greater community role, providing free and easy access to technology and essential information.
So we're very happy that FEMA recognized our contributions and made this important change to the Stafford Act.
Libraries should prepare and embrace their roles as community disaster recovery centers and telecommunication information hubs before and after an emergency.
And we are challenging libraries to assume this role.
And I just want to be clear about what I mean by a disaster recovery center.
We know that libraries are not official disaster recovery centers, so the slide you see, Caldwell Public Library in New Jersey is not an official public -- disaster recovery center, however, the lakeville Massachusetts slide is an official disaster recovery center.
DRCs are prequalified ahead of time by FEMA, and not every library can serve as an official DRC, because they're very expensive to set up, and to staff, and FEMA simply does not have the resources to set up and staff every library after an emergency.
But libraries have served as unofficial DRCs through many a storm, and librarians have worked alongside FEMA and emergency responders supporting their services and providing assistance after sandy and other natural and man made disasters.
So it's just kind of a natural role that the library assumes in the community.
Hurricane sandy was a reminder to New Jersey municipal, county, and state officials that libraries are proven assets in disaster response, and they serve as a rallying point for the community in an emergency.
Libraries really served multiple roles after a disaster.
As a safe haven, as the unofficial recovery center, as the information hub, as the headquarters for volunteers and even for emergency management.
They are natural gathering places for people after a disaster because of the multiple roles they assume.
And they are located in every community, and their locations are known, even by nonlibrary users, their services are trusted by all, and again, even nonusers.
Everybody knows where the library is in the community.
By the way, I just think this is an awesome drawing that came out of sandy.
After a disaster, libraries offer a repit from the storm.
They're a welcoming refuge for displaced citizens for many reasons.
Librarians -- libraries have for the most part safe, secure buildings.
After Sandy in New Jersey, while they may have been without power, there were a few libraries that were actually down and out, and those were only a few that were along the coastline.
So pretty much their buildings are safe and secure.
They have relaxing and comfortable seating, and flexible spaces, they have heat for warming up, and air conditioning to cool down, and they have restroom facilities.
They also serve as a communication and information hub for the community, most of you probably have well-equipped tech labs with internet, free wi-fi, email, fax, photo copiers, and let's not forget land lines, which can prove very important in a disaster.
So they are a natural gathering place for information updates.
And many have served as temporary headquarters for FEMA, for government agencies, for relief  workers, and even for the military.
The space has been used as a distribution center for relief agencies, for food and coat drives, so they help out the community in that way, and all of these are assets that libraries can offer that help restore a sense of normalcy to the community.
And it gives a routine for adults and for children, amidst what is really chaos in their lives.
It helps people and it helps small business back on their feet, back to their lives, and that's what we call community resiliency.
We know that libraries have always provided these services to the community, but in an emergency, they are truly ports in a storm.
And embracing this role is another way libraries continue to evolve to meet needs of the community and are valued as essential community services.
So let's talk about librarians.
At our ports in the storm conference, one of the Red Cross representatives told us that the need for information after a disaster is paramount, and that's exactly what libraries are trained to provide.
Our skill set is such that we're pretty much great with technology, right, we're early adapters of a lot of the technology, we're very comfortable with it, we know we deliver accurate information in a variety of formats and settings, and not to pat ourselves on the back too much, but we're pretty good at strategizing and problem solving, you know, very quickly.
Furthermore, the public sees librarians as more approachable than government agency staff, and according to a 2018 Knight foundation poll and also a Gall up poll, the public trusts us more than the news media, 78% for us, to 33% for the news media, and among the 18-35-year-olds, that trust shoots up to 87%.
So, yeah, millenials.
Librarians are viewed as emergenciable, they're trusted in the community.
They're helpful and they're viewed as very approachable, where customer service oriented, and people know that we help them find information without judging any of their motives.
So all of this makes us very great information professionals to help with people's problems after a disaster.
And even our paraprofessional and support staff is dedicated and they know their customers.
Many of them live in the communities that are affected by the disasters themselves, and therefore they know the neighbors, they know the neighborhood.
So our staff is the best resource that we can offer the community to help emergency management after a disaster.
I want to stress that librarians serve in the capacity of second responders who support first responders.
We are not asking librarians to rush in alongside emergency personnel.
We don't want to do that.
Take in to careful consideration if you're thinking about even like this opioid epidemic and administering Narcan, so we want to be careful that we know our role as second responders, however, as the pin at the top says, we are information first responders.
And the objective of the second responder is really to help quickly enable people to get back to work, back to their lives to ensure the recovery of the community's economic life.
Identifying and empowering second responders helps make the difference between a lasting disruption and sort of a quick return to nor mall daily life and libraries play very critical role in the community in making this happen.
Furthermore, libraries continue to play a role long after the disaster is sort of quote unquote  over, and our role in the community extends much longer than any other organization, because emergency management withdraws once the emergency is over.
And government agencies like FEMA are going to pack up afterwards once the forms are all filled out and there's any aid distributed.
But libraries have staying power in the community.
And in New Jersey, our libraries are still helping people that were affected by Sandy more than five years out.
So that's a long time.
So here are a Kabul of examples of how libraries -- a couple of examples of how libraries in the direct path of super storm Sandy actively served as disaster recovery centers.
And hopefully this will give you some ideas of how you can partner with libraries in your own town.
So I want you to remember that your response can be scalable.
There's always something you can do no matter how big or how small the library is.
So if you look along the left-hand side, that was the Neptune Public Library, right in central Jersey along the shoreline.
And before the storm hit, because we had ample warning it was coming, the Neptune mayor told the library staff to pack their bag for 72 hours and be ready to report to work.
And the library staff prepared their facility for the aftermath of the storm.
So ahead of time what they did was they added extra extension cords, and power strips to meet what they knew was going to be incredible demand.
They suspended ally bring fines and fees because that's the last thing you want to do when you have people who have lost their homes, insist they pay a library fine and they move their furniture around to accommodate crowds and for all the power users that were going to come into the library.
And afterwards, and this is where you see the tents here, they entered FEMA data into spreadsheets, they documented townwide street closures, they worked -- the high school transportation center, and they helped man the phones at city hall 24/7 for the first week.
Other staff members helped out at the senior center, to help feed everyone, and then off site with the tents, this is when the mayor requested loans -- a loan of laptops and the outreach and the reference librarians, so he wanted the reference librarians, he wanted the laptops, and they walked over town, they brought their computers with them, and they had an emergency management truck in an area where no one could get to besides walk to, they -- the emergency management truck was moved in like sort of as a mobile command center.
They provided power and a wi-fi node for entity access.
And so the public works brought tables and propane heaters and port-a-john, and Neptune's  librarians, they manned that tent for several days, and they helped FEMA right on the spot input applications.
And they assisted over actually five days, they assisted 150 residents.
So it was quite something to see.
Over on the right-hand side, the ocean county library, they have 22 branches, and they were actually the hardest hit.
Of course ocean county, they're right along the shoreline, they completely lost two of their branches, and many of the other branches had sustained a great deal of flooding and water damage.
Those branches have been renovated and they have since all been reopened.
But many of them were without power for a few days.
And even with all of their facilities problems, including they had no power in their main branch, they tried to get as many branches open as possible during the day.
And they already had a stand by generator, and that jep rater for a large library system like that, that was minimum of 150,000 dollars, and all that powered was the library's network.
Nothing else.
No lights or electric or anything like that, it just powered their network.
But even through all of that, their muse inpal office of emergency management used their main branch as the actual headquarters command center for emergency management.
They had the space in emergency management spread out and took over all the open space in the library.
They also set up their website as a hurricane resource information site, and they got that -- remember they had that generator to run the network, and they had that up like right away.
The slides you see, they held a two-day information fair in two locations, bringing together community offices and volunteer groups, and people were so happy that they could come to, like, one place and get all of the resources that they needed.
The librarians, they put this together like instinct, they knew what people needed to know.
That's what I mean when I say the staff is able to strategize quickly in these types of situations.
The East Brunswick Public Library called themselves ground zero for the community.
And even though they were without power for a few days, they were still open to the public during the day.
Remember, we're not sheltering centers, so people did have to leave at night, and that was often a very tough thing to send people out when they had nowhere to go.
But these libraries were open during the day.
Before Sandy hit, East Brunswick prepared additional electronic and paper, don't forget paper resources, at the reference center, and that included information on general health and mental health, especially after a crisis or a disaster, and they also had a special section resources for pregnant women.
The mayor, the town officials, the director of emergency management and the police all relied on the library to get out critical information through their website and social media.
So the librarians tweeted constant updates on where to get gas, who had power, advisories and warnings such as which roads to stay off of because of downed wires, where to get food, the location of warming stations, and where there was hot water so people could take a shower.
So they since then, it's been several years now, they've since moved everything to the cloud so their website will never go down, even if they do lose their power for a few days, because they know that people need immediate access to accurate, vetted information, and that's what they worked very, very hard to provide.
They did an excellent job, especially with all of the mental health resources they offered during hurricane Sandy.
So I'm just going to see if I can get these all up at once here.
There should be eight of them.
Very good.
Okay.
So let's talk about first things first.
Preparing your library, your facilities to be resilient.
So of course the whole point of the initiative is really to promote cooperation and coordination among emergency management, and community partners and the library.
And so this is really a new sort of whole community-based approach to disaster response for libraries, focusing on service continuity, and community resiliency.
These things are not taught, they weren't taught in library school, and in fact I've been to several conferences lately on this where there are some academic librarians that are writing articles and reporting, like gee, look, libraries, look at the role libraries could play after a disaster.
But if you go out in the field, you know they'd find out pretty quickly how much was really going on and how many libraries, not just in Eugene, but throughout the country, are really stepping in to already fill these kind of roles.
Now, our first responders have always been involved with disaster preparedness response and  recovery.
I mean, that's their job.
It's only been in the last few years that libraries have begun to assess their post-disaster resources and services and plan how to work more closely with the community.
So it's all about the resources we have to offer, the resources we offer the community, the  resources that we have to offer emergency management.
So here's my short list of how we advise libraries to prepare for an emergency ahead of time.
So that you're prepared to assume the role of the community disaster recovery center.
And you can return to this list again later to review, I'm going to go over it fairly quickly.
So number one, preparing your library facility and staff.
This means the library must have a disaster plan, an emergency technology plan, a service continuity plan, and a temporary facilities plan, just in case your facilities are damaged and you need to relocate.
Bring in your power splice, your portable generator, your power strips now, ahead of time.
We always advise libraries, don't stock any kind of laptops or computers, because you know you're going to need more, because a disaster might not hit for several years, and then what are you going to do with all that outdated equipment?
But sometimes it's good to have a few thousand dollars stashed in the emergency fund, where if you had to go out and buy, you know, tablets or whatever quickly, you could have those funds available.
So what's new is the focus on the service continuity instead traft decisional disaster plan, which is -- that's internal, service continuity is external, and service -- it's taking a business model, this disaster service continuity is taking the business model and applying it to libraries.
So two, make plans to keep library website, online resources, and social media accessible and  updated, and what you really need to do is prepare and promote those online resources as -- ahead of time.
So people will know where to go.
You just can't put them up right after the disaster and expect that everybody is going to find them.
So prepare and promote ahead of time.
Three, partner with other libraries for support services, and to share disaster supplies.
And that's what's called a regional emergency response network.
So find some people in the area, outside of the area that could help you in times of an emergency.
Four, inform elected officials of the services you intend to offer after disaster.
Because they don't know.
The you have to tell them what you have and then you also have to make sure that you keep in contact with them during a disaster.
Five, develop a relationship with your community emergency responders.
We're going to talk a lot more about that.
And learn -- you have to learn how to speak their language.
Learn what's called the incident command system, and the management structure of emergency response.
They have a very special language, and librarians need to understand that language of emergency response if we are to fit in and truly help them after a disaster.
Six, work with other community partners.
Find and join forces with others in your community whose mission includes disaster response.
There are many faith-based groups and nonprofits in your community that are going to be active after a disaster.
So seven, we encourage libraries to take part in national preparedness month, that's sponsored by FEMA, it is held every September.
And also to offer programming throughout the year that will help the public assemble their own family emergency supply kit, craft a family emergency plan, and help the community get ready for an emergency.
Promote the role of the library as a disaster recovery center.
And educate -- an educated community is a safer community.
A community that is resilient and bounces back faster.
And then finally, be familiar with salvaging family treasures.
Know that once the disaster hits, and people look around and figure out if they're okay, if their family is okay, and their friends are okay, the next thing they're going to do, the very next thing to begin cleaning up their lives, is they're going to look for their family treasures, their photographs, pictures, special mementos of their loved ones.
And what we found is they're going to be coming to you for help in how they're going to salvage these materials.
And if you Google that, there's going to be lots of information about how to do that that I'm not going to get into here.
That's a whole other presentation.
The prep plan.
So forget about the big fat disaster plans that sit on the shelf.
This is the only one you need.
And you could complete this prep plan in an afternoon.
This is the one tool that all members of your staff should have on them at all times for  emergencies.
It's called prep, and it was developed by the council of state archivists.
It's a two-sided document that folds up to this -- actually to the size of a credit card, and you can even buy those little, you see those pockets it fits into, especially on the upper right, you can even buy those.
And it fits in your wallet, inside your purse or pocket, for maximum portability and convenience.
One side features a list of emergency contacts, and the other side is a floor plan of the library, and a list of information categories.
And you'll see some of the information categories that are listed there just know that you could pick and choose, you don't have to have all of those categories, pick the ones that make sense for your library.
So just go to the link and you can download the document and you can modify the document for your library.
And this is pretty much now what we recommend for everybody to have as their disaster plan.
Just don't leave it in the library.
Join forces with regional emergency response networks.
I had mentioned before, this is where you're going to go -- this is your network when if you need help with your facilities and your collections.
You want to build an alliance, like an alliance for response.
We have one, we have the New Jersey cultural alliance for response, that includes libraries and other cultural institutions.
Alliance for response is sort of like a national initiative, but again, you want a regional network so that you can build a cache of disaster supplies, and a network of people that work in libraries that can help you -- that can help you salvage your own collections, because you're first going to take care of your library, what happened, the damage to your library, before you can really open up and help people in an emergency.
Then I want to talk about really, our unique resource that we developed to establish a resilient library, and that is our librarians' disaster preparedness and community resiliency tool kit.
So this tool kit was developed by the New Jersey state library, along with a consultant that I met at a conference actually, he came into my talk on ports in a storm at ALA by accident, he was there with his wife in emergency management, and he was a great person, we teamed up together, and he worked in the emergency management community and we built this tool kit together.
It's a free resource that can be used by anyone, and it really was created and meant to be simple to use.
It's a guidebook and a workbook or a checklist that focuses on services and resources if you're going to develop and offer your community after a disaster.
So this is, you know, a very different way of thinking about and working about -- from a disaster plan, like I showed you in the last slide, you just need that prep plan, and that's about your facilities.
This is very different from that.
It's a tool kit that concerns helping people and the community, not based on your facilities and collections at all, and that's what really makes it unique.
Here's just the guidebook and the workbook, so the tool kit follows really a simple two-step strategy.
You're going to first develop a resiliency plan for your library, and a personal readiness plan for your staff.
Being prepared for a wide-scale disaster will allow you to deliver essential services with minimal interruption.
Once your library is ready to resume operations, you're going to modify your service offerings to meet the needs of your distressed community.
And this might mean things like changing your hours of operation, reconfiguring work space, offering more frequent children's story times, as well as offering new services such as access to electrical charging stations, so people's phones and computers can be reenergized.
So begin by reviewing the guidebook, which provides background information and an explanation on how to create an overall plan for your library, and then turn to the workbook where you're going to find forms and templates that you can use to create an actual preparedness plan.
And you can augment all of this material by taking advantage of the various education and training resources that are mentioned throughout the text.
So following the outlines and suggestions in the tool kit will prepare your library and staff to fulfill their role as information first responders and contributing -- and contributors to the resiliency in your community.
You really can't read these here, but these are just samples of the instructions and some of the checklists.
You can see one checklist is a community resiliency services, and there's additional checklists there, and you're going to find things that talk about sheltering in place, how to put together a damage assessment team, how to -- a notification for signals for people with disabilities, a crisis communication plan, how to communicate with emergency management during a crisis, public notice of emergency conditions, what to do if there's a shutdown of critical systems, you're going to learn how to count for your personnel, if something hits while your library is open.
Public use of I.T. equipment, stand by power generators, these include -- there's going to be diagrams where you can outline your library power grid and your plumbing grid, there's going to be community reengagement plan and community resiliency services, and also dealing with  disrupted people checklist, risk assessment checklist, and like you're listening to all these things, and these are all things that really we have not talked about in any kind of disaster plan, disaster planning in the past.
And this is by no means comprehensive of the few things I mentioned here that are in the checklist, and in the guidebook, but these are the kind of things that we've been told that we need to address by emergency management.
So we've included them all in the tool kit.
When you get a chance look through that, give us some feedback, email me, let me know what you think of it, if you think it's easy to use, I really wanted it to be easy to use with the checklists.
And that's online, and it's free for everyone.
So now we're getting to the part where we're going to be establishing our partnerships with our community disaster response organizations.
Gosh, I have 15 minutes left and I have a whole lot of slides here.
So let me get through -- let me go a little more quickly.
So first emergency management, we've been talking about resources that the libraries bring to emergency management after a disaster, and although emergency management may not always be aware of the important role that libraries play in community resiliency, so you have to go to them and tell them about what you have to offer.
You have to ask if you can join their conversations about risk assessment, mitigation and  preparedness planning in your area of coverage.
And you want to ask if you can be incorporated into your county, state, or local preparedness exercise scenarios and action plans.
So make emergency management realize the importance of getting the library open quickly after a disaster.
Remember, FEMA considers us an essential service.
And they can help you help the community by restoring your power as quickly as they can, by clearing debris from around your library, doing minor repairs, and even they can do to get your facilities open again.
So plan on working together.
I had mentioned earlier that you need to learn the language of emergency response, and here's a free online tutorial about the incident command system.
Yes, it's going to be all on you to establish and nurture the relationships with emergency management, and you have to know that emergency management sort of has its own default system when a crisis hits, when a disaster strikes.
And the beauty of this system is that it's scalable, it's applicable to a small or large area incident, and an incident is what they call a disaster, so notice how you need to learn the correct terminology.
It's something that emergency management from any state, any area could all come together and be united under this one incident command system, and you'll see just a little chart and outline of how it works.
So go online and check that out, at least become familiar with the terminology.
The Red Cross is desperate for volunteers after disaster.
But in order to volunteer, you have to be trained, or they can't use you.
So that's why we recommend that your library disaster response team receives the certificate  training.
I saw someone mention early on, that's what I was wearing with my hat on in the beginning.
You want to contact your local emergency management office to see when they offer certificate  training.
They do minor first aid and they assist with emergency management.
The New Jersey state library now is involved with a new statewide initiative that involves NJ volunteers after disasters, or NJ -- that is a state office as part of the office of emergency management state operations plan.
And they've asked that libraries become a formal part of the statewide plan by serving as walk-in volunteer registration centers.
Given the role that libraries played in the state after Sandy, they thought we would be an ideal partner and we agree.
And another training corps citizen corps that you can locate and see if they're in your community, because these are the people that are going to come into your library and really kind of do the dirty work and clean out the mud, they're willing to help and they're there.
And if -- you see them working out in your community, you can offer -- the library can offer them a place to meet, coffee and snacks, a place to come in and warm up, or cool down, because they're the people that really roll up their sleeves and do the dirty work after a disaster.
Then search out faith-based groups and other nonprofits in your neighborhood or town that are active after a disaster, and I just have the united Methodist up here because they have a huge, just a huge network involved in disaster response, and they don't only answer the call in this  country, but they'll go to other countries to help out.
Offer them a space in your library for whatever they need, whether it's a food drive, clothing  drive, and this is how you're going to be building a whole community support team in times of great need.
So let's take a minute to talk about one of our librarians great strengths, and that is technology and social media.
Social media has proven very adept at covering disasters, and when Sandy hit New York and New  Jersey, people took to twitter, Facebook, YouTube, to post and share images of the storm.
People used social media to connect, share, collaborate on their disaster recovery efforts.
And local folks also used social media to keep up with news reports and even to make use of geo mapping sites to keep track of what gas stations were open, and where were food and supply distribution centers.
There were thousands and thousands of storm photos that were posted online to Flickr.
People checked in with loved ones, or tried to locate friends and relatives.
Social media is now considered so vital in disaster recovery, that it's integrated into all emergency preparedness and communication efforts, because the public is affecting it, the public is using it, and they're not being told, therapy not waiting to be told what to do, but they're actively posting and taking it into their own hands, and seeking out what they don't know whether it's true or not.
So websites, email, even paper are going to continue to be an important resource for the public, but in a time of crisis and the resulting communications noise, librarians need to push out urgent messages directly into social media and then direct the public back to their online and  in-house resources.
So this technology is particularly well suited to librarians and information professionals who are, you know, very adept at using vetted news sources, and this is where we can truly claim the mantle of information first responders.
Here's a partnership that's ideally suited for emergency management and information professionals, called VOST, virtual operations support team.
You can see if your state already has a VOST, or you can talk to your local emergency management about implementing this yourself.
You can do this locally, it doesn't have to be statewide.
We do have statewide VOST team under our volunteer management annex.
So remember when we talked about East Brunswick library and they were tweeting information for their mayor and local emergency management?
That's exactly what I'm talking about.
That is a virtual operations support team.
VOST makes use of social media tools to help those on the ground who would otherwise be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data generated during a disaster.
It's an effective way to use social media during a disaster to make it easier for emergency managers to handle really what's massive amounts of information being generated in a crisis while also meeting the expectations of people who are demanding information.
An increasing number of emergency managers use social media to share updates and information, but very few really have staff and resources or the time to keep up with the constant and really overwhelming flow of information during a disaster, much of it is actually wrong.
So even small, local disasters can stretch resources of a small emergency management team, leaving the public with unanswered questions or incorrect information from unofficial sources.
VOST is perfect for the librarian's skill set and investigating and partnering with your local municipality to establish a VOST team would be great if you could do that in your own region.
Very quickly I want to talk a little bit about targeted community giving, and this is something also that the library can spearhead.
This is from occupy Sandy, which was in New York, and this is someone set up a bridal registry on amazon, but they used it for things that people really needed in the community, that they  really need after a disaster.
Because some people really money is the number one thing people need, but some people don't like to give money, they actually want to donate something, and so if a library can set up something like this on amazon for your own community, this is going to be very helpful in getting people in your community exactly what they need.
Because unwanted donations have been called the disaster after the disaster, and they're most often no help at all.
People are just getting rid of things and thinking they will help, and they really create a problem and they're detrimental to the rescue process because emergency responders and volunteers often have to move all this unwanted stuff out of the way before they can actually get to the people that they need to get to, and to -- and to the supplies and the medical supplies that they often need.
So I thought this was a really great idea, and it's something that could be very easy for you to set up in your own community.
So let's review some of the things we talked about today and the steps that you can take to help your community after a disaster.
Put a committee together to write a disaster plan.
Use the prep template.
You'll be done in an afternoon if you do.
If you want to advance from there, FEMA has a number of disaster practice scenarios on their  website.
H, exercises you can do in your library, and you should really do like these tabletop exercises with your staff, and your disaster response team, at least once a year.
Plan for the reopening of your facility so that you can help your community.
And of course if you're building a severely damaged like -- if your building is severely damaged, this may be impossible.
Use the librarians' disaster preparedness and community resiliency tool kit that's available for free on the New Jersey state library's website.
Investigate how you would resume some critical operations in another location if your building is going to sustain damage.
Identify and connect with your regional response network to arrange like a mutual agreement should you need help with your facilities and your collections.
Establish your community connections before a disaster strikes.
And maintain those connections so that they don't forget about you.
And it's really your reaching out, you're going to have to constantly be reaching out on your part.
With emergency management and elected officials, make sure that you tell them what resources you're going to bring to the table and how you can help them after a disaster.
Learn the incident command system so you can speak their language when they're going to fall to that in an emergency situation.
And now make contact with local community volunteers.
Those who are on the CERT teams and the citizen corps, local faith-based and nonprofit groups, and get trained yourself so that you can be of even greater help in an emergency.
Let the community know frequently to check your Facebook page and twitter account after an  emergency.
You're changing information all the time, and you can tell them you're going to be keeping those things up to date with alerts from local officials and emergency management.
Put together a social media team on your staff for this, and remember to always direct the people back to your website and your online resources, which of course are going to be far more extensive than what you can cover on Facebook and twitter.
And finally know that the day after a disaster, the public is going to be at your door.
So be as ready for them as you can.
Think about ways to make your space as flexible to accommodate the crowds.
And one further worked of advice, your staff may personally be affected by a disaster, and they need your permission to take care of themselves and their families first.
Also there are people that do well in emergency situations, and some people who do not.
So you need to consider your staff, your own staff's mental health before asking them to pitch in and deal with a community in distress.
In the end, all disaster response is local, and your library can be a port in the storm when needed most.
But it can be a true lifesaver when you all work together to offer a wealth of coordinated services to a community in need.
So I hope this presentation, though I went through it quickly, helped you see libraries in a new light, and has given you a few concrete steps to prepare your library for any future disaster.
You don't have to do all of the things we talked about, but do what you can.
People are counting on you for your help.
So thank you, I'm here to now answer any questions or you have my email, you can always email me after the presentation whenever if you need further information.
So Jennifer, I'm going to turn it over to you and if there are any questions in the chat box --
>> yeah.
Sure.
Thank you so much, Michele, that's so great.
I know it's a lot of information, but it's definitely a great place to start.
I just wanted to point out a couple things.
There were lots of affirmations about -- an affirmation about using -- that libraries are natural for being VOSTs, and then also a couple folks pointed out that team Aruba conwas another great volunteer -- Rubicon that was helpful especially during hurricane Harvey.
We'll add that reference.
There was a great question when you were talking about the impact of library response and services around measuring -- do you measure what you're doing in real time, or how do you estimate after the fact knowing how many people you've helped, and in what ways, and how many volunteers are involved.
Is there a way to sort of anticipate metrics in terms of reporting?
>> That's actually something that I haven't thought of, and I don't know if anyone's actually implemented that.
We have over -- we have over 300 libraries in New Jersey, 400 actual buildings.
I am sure that there are ways -- there's nothing the state library has put together for metrics, which would be great.
But I'm sure that the libraries themselves have tried to put together some sort of reporting as a way of, you know, going back to the municipalities, securing additional funding, or just  pointing out that, hey, you really do -- we are essential services, and you need it from the community, but no, I don't have anything formal that I could share with you.
>> Okay.
Well, good question to dive into.
If anyone has any thoughts about it, feel free to chime in on chat.
If others -- if there are other questions, be sure to let us know and as Michele said, you all have her email, I'll go to the next slide.
Thank you so much for all the great work that you and your team have done, and all those libraries that were a part of that conference.
I know that you've really pulled together all of their experiences and the great work that they're doing.
So thank you so much, and I know that lots of other folks around the country have been dealing with disasters, so definitely we'll look to you all to help make sure we're doing the right thing here, and definitely the slides will be available, the recording will be available, I will send you all an email once the event page has been updated.
It should be later on today or this evening for those of you on the East Coast.
And I'll ask that as you leave today we're going to send you to a short survey.
It's great to get your feedback, we'll share that with Michele as well, and it helps us guide our ongoing programming.
And a reminder too that there were so many links and resources shared in today's session, they'll all be updated and collected on that event page, and the New Jersey site has even more  resources to explore, so hopefully you all a can set aside some time to think about your library's role and again, feel free to reach out to Michele and get some other input from her.
Thank you again, Michele.
Thank you to everyone who joined us today.
>> My pleasure.
Thank you.
>> Thank you to our captioner as well.
And everyone, have a fantastic day.