Disaster Prevention - some notes on the European Working Group
The 2005 published Report on archives in the enlarged European Union, and the subsequent Council Recommendation of the same year laid a special emphasis on the topics of preservation and disaster prevention.
Before the Council recommendation was published there was a lack of formal exchange between archivists on a multinational level on the topics of preservation and disaster prevention. Archivists and other experts often met on a national or regional basis. Only in special cases, such as for example the planning of a new archives building, was this exchange extended to a bi- or even multinational level but even than no formal networks were established.
Therefore in 2007 a tri-national working group consisting of members from Germany, Poland and the Czech republic – has been established. This working group is going to tackle the problem of disaster prevention mainly, since this seems to be the most urgent problem in the realm of preservation regarding the disastrous events in the last few years especially in these countries. The other aspects of preservation and conservation mentioned in the Council recommendation will be touched only slightly even if the constant contact between experts of this three countries might be used for the purpose of advice and further engagement.
During the last year this working group met twice and drafted a concept for a multilingual internet-platform for the presentation of information regarding disaster prevention and disaster management.
This platform should present detailed information on disaster prevention and disaster management, focusing mainly on the aspects of prevention and recovery. The scope of information will range from detailed text on different aspects of disaster prevention and management to short guidelines how to react in certain typical situations of emergency and how to treat certain types of damaged archival material. Furthermore there will be a section with reports about new scientific research in the field of preservation and disaster management to enable colleagues getting information formally not accessible in different languages. The other important function of the internet platform is to give hints where to find appropriate resources and capacity either in other archives or public institutions or by consulting commercial companies providing such services. Thus one main part of it will be the enlargement of the German based internet database NORA – Notfall Register Archive (register of archives for cases of emergency) to an European level. This database should be the main tool to structure and to enable networking between the European archives. All registered users should have access to the information provided in the database enabling them thereby to establish contact to colleagues and experts in this field.
This internet platform should first be operated in English but might be enlarged by the languages of the participating countries in due time. The information on the platform should be always presented in one local language and in English. Over the time the information gathered and presented on the website should reach all archivists from participating countries without any language barriers. This is certainly necessary since we cannot expect all archives and especially smaller ones to have enough staff at hands who are able to read and understand English or other foreign languages.