Many disaster response teams in libraries these days are practicing their plan by staging a mock wet book disaster, where an attempt is made to carry out all the elements of the plan on a small scale. The size of these practice sessions is usually 1000 to 2000 discarded volumes that are water soaked on purpose to give the team members valuable experience in the do's and dont's of handling and packing wet and damaged books.

The results of these events have been very positive in focusing the disaster team on the coordinated effort needed to move wet books and documents from the shelf to a freezer. The exercise is great for building confidence in the team members, as well as teaching them to respond effectively to books that are water damaged by the all-too-common roof leak, broken pipe, clogged drain line or basement flood.

In essence, the practice allows the disaster response team to become the operational side of the written plan -- which is, of course, exactly what you want it to be.

Document Reprocessors would like to assist institutions that are planning disaster practice sessions by offering to vacuum freeze-dry up to two one-cubic foot cartons of frozen materials at no cost to you except for the shipping of your materials to and from one of our facilities. Adding the vacuum freeze-drying step to your practice exercise will give your team the experience of arranging for freezing and shipping and the opportunity of seeing the end-product of the recovery effort.

Please call Quintin Schwartz at our East Coast facility or Eric Lundquist at our West Coast facility to arrange for this special service.