In keeping with the situation

Jessamyn West wrote in a New Year's Eve blog entry on librarian.net:

I think as librarians we all sort of assume that people read the news someplace other than the library home page. What is our responsibility to be responsive to current events with our online presence as well as in person?

I have been wondering how I would handle national and international crisis situations in any future job I have in a library. I imagined myself in academic library at an institution with international students who might be directly connected to such a crisis and other students who have a great deal of energy to give in aid.

I think Jessamyn is right that students aren't necessarily going to turn to the library for news. Although, I also wondered if there might be a "build it and they will come" force involved here. If the library provided great tools and spaces (both on-line and off), perhaps it would become the place students go to for news. By selecting relevant and authoritative information sources, the library would be creating added value as well as convenience.

But maybe news isn't the best niche. Maybe the library's responsibility lies in two related areas: information and community.

Information. If students get their news in their habitual places, perhaps they will turn to the library when news isn't quite enough. The library can provide background information. The website might link to sources like the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program and the International Tsunami Information Center. A prominent section of the lobby can be devoted to a current events display with maps, reference books open to relevant pages, and handouts directing students to more information on the website and in the stacks. The library can compile a list of answers to the question "How can I help?" with opportunities for volunteer work and fundraising.

Community. The library could create a physical space and a virtual space devoted to the crisis, its affect on students and faculty, and the response by the community. These spaces could take several forms:

• A corner of the coffee shop devoted to news sources and needs for aid
• A situation room where staff and volunteers attempt to meet the information needs of impacted students as quickly as possible--combing web sites, making phone calls, and cutting through red tape to discover the welfare of particular people or particular locations
• A blog with up-to-date news about what members of the community are doing
• A wiki where the community shares its response

I suspect this would all be most effective if it is something librarians think about before any crisis occurs. It's something to consider when planning our physical and virtual spaces.

• Are there spaces in the library that can be quickly and easily allocated to crisis response?
• Is there a space that the library could always devote to news and current events so that students would know that the library is the place to go during a breaking news event--a television or two that always is always tuned to news and a current events display that is monitored daily by a librarian (a government documents librarian might be a good candidate for such a task)?
• Is there room on the website's front page for a prominent link to a page about a current event?
• And, a question Jessamyn brings up, does the person who is working in the library on the day after Christmas have the tools and authority to make changes to the library's physical and virtual spaces to respond to the crisis?

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