Public libraries - ensuring informed crisis response
i) Public libraries (as well as town halls and community centres) form important public spaces in the aftermath of an emergency - acting as points around which people congregate, seeking information and fostering a sense of community 'we feeling'. Libraries can, for example, provide valuable information about crisis-specific medical treatments, as well as more generally playing an awareness-raising role. They can also prove useful in archiving the events of a crisis, something interesting when trying to learn from the practice (and mistakes) of the past when preparing for the future.
ii) Context-specificity - crucially, it is important that the information that does exist is tailored to the particular crisis situation in question. Coordination, so as to avoid wasteful duplication and overlap, is therefore imperative.
iii) The above two points clearly raise questions about funding - particularly the need for adequate provision of local institutions like public libraries, which don't necessarily first spring to mind when talking about important community infrastructure contributing to resilience.
As our recent trip to the Emergency Planning College illustrated, there is a veritable mine of information out there - whether on long-term preparedness, crisis response and psychological trauma to name but a few areas. It is the dissemination of this material, effectively deployed in the right context, that seems to pose one of the real challenges in building community resilience.
Michael Harvey
michael.harvey@demos.co.uk