Implementing the Incident Command System at the Institutional Level: A Handbook for Libraries, Archives, Museums, and Other Cultural Institutions

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Heritage Preservation, 2010 - Reference - 208 pages
Every cultural repository needs two management structures: the day-to-day, business-as-usual hierarchy, and a "supercharged" management structure that takes over temporarily during a crisis or whenever looming events threaten to overwhelm normal business routines. Emergency responders have used just such a supercharged structure for years: the Incident Command System (ICS).Since its development in the early 1970s the ICS has been used to tackle a vast array of incidents, including fires, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes. The system has demonstrated that it can scale up to handle disasters that mushroom over large areas and even multiple states. But the ICS was designed to scale down as well as up. Few practitioners have addressed the question of how to use the ICS to manage an emergency within a single institutionuntil now.Implementing the Incident Command System at the Institutional Level explains how libraries, archives, and museums can adopt the ICS as a temporary management structure whenever 'business as usual' won't get the job done. Whether you are preparing for fires and floodsor planning a major public eventthe Incident Command System is a proven management tool that safeguards lives, property, and priceless collections. Learn how to put it to use in your repository!

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About the author (2010)

David W. Carmicheal is Director of the Georgia Division of Archives and History. From 2005 to 2006 Mr. Carmicheal served as president of the Council of State Archivists (CoSA). After hurricanes Katrina and Rita, he led a nationwide effort to assess the ability of state archives to protect the essential records of government. The report, Safeguarding a Nation’s Identity, provided a state-by-state framework for protecting government records from natural and human-caused disasters. He is the author of CoSA’s publication, Rescuing Family Records: A Disaster Planning Guide, and its companion volume, Rescuing Business Records: A Disaster Planning Guide for Small Businesses. He helped develop and manage CoSA’s FEMA-funded grant project, Intergovernmental Preparedness for Essential Records.

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