The Public Library as Community Crisis Center

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Arlington County Libraries, VA, kicked into high gear to provide their community-the community surrounding the Pentagon-with a host of unique local services. Twice-daily police and fire department briefings were edited and transcribed and on the air and on the web in hours; local traffic information was continuously updated online; special information postings were sent to firefighters; and potential volunteers' names were collected and distributed to organizations in need.

Across the country, librarians were among those who struggled to help their communities understand and cope with the national tragedy. The American Library Association (ALA) spread the word that relevant information was available for people in their local library. We were ready at reference desks to answer patron questions about the World Trade Center and, later, anthrax. We made book lists of materials on grieving and Islam or linked to lists posted by others. However, telling people that information is available if they come into the library and use it is a passive role at best.

Arlington proves it is possible for all libraries to go further at a time of crisis-be it terrorist attack or earthquake or school shootings or any number of other emergency situations. The key lies in being proactive in planning what the library will do and how it will do it in response to community needs. Such planning should occur before a disaster rather than during one. And it should involve the community as a whole.

Terrorism may be a relatively rare example of the sort of crises that communities face, but it is in many ways typical and it has the attention of local leaders right now. According to a recent National League of Cities survey of 456 U.S. cities, 55 percent reported having a terrorism response and/or prevention plan in place, while 12 percent are developing them and 32 percent have no plan. It is significant, too, that 52 percent intend to conduct overall reassessments. These statistics suggest that an overwhelming majority of American cities are developing or reassessing plans or have no plans at all at this time.

However, the indications are that libraries will not be involved in the planning effort. Specific changes being considered by survey participants primarily relate to prevention and immediate emergency measures, while only two might encompass community recovery activities-'better media and communications equipment to monitor situations' and 'mental health planning to provide counseling for first responders and citizens.' Yet even here there is no mention of librarians. The National League of Cities' resource guide on terrorism readiness does not use the word 'library' anywhere.

The public library has the resources and expertise to address the need for prompt, reliable, and relevant information in any crisis situation. Librarians can support or facilitate communitywide planning efforts. The library can identify its own valuable role in community recovery: the compilation, organization, and dissemination of public information before, during, and after a crisis. However, librarians cannot wait to be asked to become involved.

The director of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries, CA, was part of the city emergency team and built community information needs into the city's plan. Then following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the library established and staffed a hotline to provide essential but nonemergency information to the community (how long to boil water; who to call for a building inspection; etc.), thereby leaving the emergency lines for actual emergencies.

A proactive public library is an active partner in the city's emergency plans for consequence management and community recovery. Its functions range from the provision of key information resources and referrals for the people conducting the planning (including prevention and emergency measures), to supporting the plan by identifying areas to which the library can contribute, to facilitating the planning process itself. Libraries like Santa Cruz, which are involved on the ground floor in city planning efforts, will be the best positioned to help the community in times of crisis.

The first step is to determine the status of emergency planning in the area served by the library. Is there a plan and, if so, does it include consequence management and community recovery? What types of emergencies are covered? Is the plan being reassessed, particularly in light of recent events? Given that so many cities lack terrorism preparedness plans or intend to reassess existing plans, it is likely that local government officials will welcome assistance from the public library in that area particularly.

The public library should provide accurate data and identify authoritative Internet links and web sites for city and county planners in areas of interest. For example, biochemical warfare with related threats to water supplies ranked high on the list of city-identified priorities for terrorism preparedness plan expansion and is a topic where more information is required.

The public library may volunteer its assistance in specific activities identified as part of the plan itself. Training is cited frequently in most city emergency plans, and the library possesses the facilities to host such events and the staff expertise to identify appropriate speakers. These events may target an individual city department (e.g., federal resources to train and test people in a mock crisis) or be open to the general public (lifesaving sessions for first responders).

If city officials decide to defer planning or to conduct planning without public library involvement, the library's mission requires it to provide information to the community in all events, and it should make its own plans accordingly. Whether it is working alone or together with other agencies, the library should conduct a needs assessment for community information in the event of a crisis. As we learned recently, people will want relevant information when a major crisis occurs anywhere in the United States, not only when it directly affects their own communities.

In general, people want to be able to understand what the crisis will entail, how to protect themselves, and how to obtain emergency services and information. They will want emergency information (nature and location of the crisis, what to do and what not to do, emergency telephone numbers, and reliable sources for news updates are anticipated topics) and daily life impact information (school closings, traffic detours, business closings) immediately following the crisis and continuing until the crisis is over. Dependent upon the proximity of the crisis, information on shelters, sources for food and water, and similar rescue measures will also be needed. When daily life begins to resume, people may need insurance firms, lists of reputable charities, and information on topics ranging from affordable temporary housing or office space to means of alternate transportation.

To determine specifics, conduct open-ended telephone interviews with a small number of people about their individual information requirements in the event of a crisis. Discuss the ways they most likely would obtain, or would prefer to obtain, that data, including language and format. The answers can be used to form the basis for a multiple-choice survey involving a larger population sample. The special needs of people with disabilities and people who are illiterate must be identified.

The information needs and resources of local institutions should also be compiled. There will be requirements unique to them, as information disseminators themselves, and they are the source for some of the critical information required by the community during a crisis. A school, for example, may need to download handouts written at various reading levels; at the same time, it is the source for community information on school hours and daily closings. Representatives from local agencies should be interviewed or invited to participate in a focus group about their needs and ways to format specific resources to meet those needs in a coordinated manner. The data they themselves can contribute should also be identified.

With the support of local government officials, the library can take on the larger task of facilitating the entire community recovery portion of emergency planning. The key criticism of terrorism preparedness at the federal level has been the lack of coordination among agencies. Cross-organizational involvement in developing a community recovery plan can help bridge those gaps at the local level while providing access routes to federal and state resources.

In its role as planning catalyst, the public library can bring together representatives from the local agencies, institutions, and organizations that need to be involved to assure an effective plan. These would include schools, newspapers, local health facilities, national service providers, etc. Depending on the resources the library is able to find for the undertaking, it may volunteer to conduct research or collect the data requested by others. If the city is allocating funds to the development of emergency plans, the library can expect compensation for some of the extra work it may be taking on.

The community recovery plan should contain specific objectives and activities, with resources and responsibilities identified. A living and breathing plan includes a method for updating and maintenance, including the recruitment of additional partners. The public library will identify its role in plan implementation along with the other partners'.

The community should be aware that the planning is underway so as to encourage their input at appropriate junctures and to help build public confidence about safety-a priority of many government officials. And since people must know how to obtain key information before they are caught in a crisis, widespread publicity is necessary about contacts. At the conclusion of the planning process, the public library can provide a forum for ongoing communications and information sharing among the participants and between the participants and the public.

Public information will emerge as a key component of community recovery during and after a crisis. As the primary publicly funded information provider in the community, the public library should assume a role as the communications and information center. This role builds upon the traditional library strengths of gathering, evaluating, organizing, and disseminating information and applies them to critical community needs at the time of a crisis.

It is probable that the optimum means for compiling and distributing the information will be electronic. A centralized-decentralized approach-with the contribution of information by authoritative sources combined with a coordination hub for spreading that information-would be an effective model. Centralization of the organizing function also makes provision for contributions that are not electronic and for automatically tailoring the information content and format to the distribution preferences of the participants. It will be necessary to devise a backup strategy in case all or part of the electronic network is inoperable.

The web site must be designed and prepared for immediate activation prior to any crisis. Its specifications should include access to specific topics; user-friendliness; visual, print, and audio capability; password-protected ability to add and edit information from remote sites; capacity for multiple languages; ability for users to edit and reformat data for self-distribution; sufficient capacity to support multiple users, plus the ability to increase that capacity rapidly.

It is understood that the single point-of-contact list for information-contributing entities must be current and that those contacts are prepared to respond. Some generic information (e.g., street maps, definitions and symptoms of known biochemical weapons, safe water-handling instructions, and so forth) may be prepared for loading, to be drawn upon as appropriate to the situation. Which portions of this generic information actually appear should be decided at the time of crisis rather than having everything preloaded; the extra time it may take one trained librarian to select and post pages is minimal compared to the time many users would spend scanning large general documents for specific relevant information.

Library staff will select the relevant generic information, create new data that are unique to the specific nature and location of the crisis, and review the contributions from other participants; all information will be organized and formatted into a uniform whole. Simultaneously, the availability of the library information bank and ways to access it will be announced to the public through prior arrangements with newspapers, radio and television stations, and other mass media.

While the public library may also serve in other capacities during the crisis in accordance with the community recovery plan or in response to unanticipated needs-libraries served as shelters and blood donation sites during the September attacks-the information coordination and dissemination role is central to the library's existence independent of any crisis. And no other entity could do it better.

Following that immediate response, consequence management will begin to address the specific problems of community recovery. Many of those activities conducted after the September terrorist attacks, particularly in the areas of special information needs and resumption of everyday life, were usually done by a number of organizations-and not in a coordinated way.

The public library should convene a meeting of representatives from various agencies, institutions, and organizations to identify the key problems faced by people in the community in the days and weeks ahead. Approaches to resolving the problems can be identified, and responsibilities will be assumed for the various tasks.

The public library can stimulate, support, and participate in planning for consequence management and community recovery within the parameters of the city emergency plan. It should position itself now as a proactive player in this arena, thereby adjusting and expanding upon its role.

A public library can be much more than a passive repository of data. It can and should be the community's center for coordinating and disseminating local information to help all residents. While we may recognize these tasks as the logical outgrowths of the public library's core mission, this is an opportunity to remind others of that mission and its importance. In the best-case scenario, the local crisis plan will never be put into action. But the library's visible role in developing the plan and the contacts developed in that process can nonetheless have benefits for the community and the library.