Recovery – Recovery is the period after the hurricane event where the library and community begins to react to the aftermath of the events and takes initial steps to return to normal operations and services. Library damages must be identified, assessed, and repaired. The library must assist the community to do the same with homes and business repairs. The Disaster Recovery for Public Records Custodians, Archives and Libraries website offered by the State Library of Florida provides many recovery related resources in the areas of records recovery, storage, media repair, and provides general conservation advice. SOLINET offers classes and training for library staff, preservation services, consulting, and recovery related electronic resources and library products. The SOLINET corporate brochure provides an overview of what SOLINET can offer you and your library.
As we learn from these experiences, the knowledge gained must be used to improve how the library can better prepare for future emergencies. A formal assessment of how the library and staff survived the disaster can help identify how the library can better serve the community in the future should a similar disaster occur.

How You Can Help: Do you and your public library have experience assisting your community prepare for and recover from a hurricane? How do these above phases compare to your experiences? Please send an email to Project Manager, Joe Ryan with any thoughts you may have. By offering and describing your preparedness and response efforts, and related experiences, you will help to identify a set of best practices that will help all libraries and communities more effectively work together during emergencies situations. See our project summary, LibraryJournal.com article, or radio interview for further information.