Floods and other disasters

These pictures showing the results of a flash flood in Hawaii have been making the rounds of the librarian email list servers. I think they have turned us all into disaster planning advocates. The initial devastation followed by the rapid growth of mold made an impression.

This might be a good place to record one of the best pieces of advice I've received while in library school. It was from Roxanna Herrick, the preservation librarian at Washington University--my practicum supervisor arranged for me to spend an afternoon with her. She said "Keep an eye on your stacks." Most problems that occur in a library are not as dramatic as a flash flood. They are things like a leaking water pipe above range 4 on level B. Roxanna suggested that when I have a new job, I walk around the stacks with the maintenance person who would take my call to learn know how to describe the problem in his or her way of thinking (not "the pipe over range 4 of the government documents stacks," but "the pipe that goes to the women's bathroom on level B").

Which all leads me to another suggestion made by David Straight (also of Washington University) when he was teaching The Academic Library class: buy donuts for the maintenance people--show appreciation when it's not an emergency so that they will be there for you when there is an emergency. That makes it sound like quid pro quo, but I don't think he meant it that way. It's more a matter of developing relationships, not just with fellow professional librarians but with everyone who makes the library run. Value the work of the shelvers, circulation clerks, and maintenance people because the library needs them and they tend to be under-appreciated.     #

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