Many disaster response teams are practicing their plan by staging a mock wet book disaster, the attempt is to carry out all the elements of a plan on a small scale. The size of these practice sessions are usually 1000 to 2000 discarded volumes that are water-soaked on purpose. This gives the team members a valuable experience in the do’s and don’ts of handling and packing wet and damaged books.

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The results of these events have shown to be very positive for the disaster teams.  The exercise is great for building confidence in all 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, practice events allow the disaster response team to become operational of the written plan — which is, of course, exactly what you want.

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