No.180, December 2011

Lectures on recovery of library materials from emergencies and disasters by Mr. Andrew Robb

Mr. Andrew Robb

On September 13 and 14, 2011, the National Diet Library (NDL) held open lectures to contribute to recovering materials damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake, inviting Mr. Andrew Robb, Special Projects Officer of the Conservation Division at the Library of Congress (LC). Mr. Robb specializes in photographic conservation, with many experiences of teaching workshops for rescuing damaged materials all over the world.

On September 13, the lecture titled "Recovery of Library Materials from a Major National Disaster" was presented in the Tokyo Main Library, NDL. It introduced the recovery of library materials from the Florence Flood of 1966, the University of Hawaii Flood of 2004, and Hurricane Katrina of 2005. In relation to the United States Emergency Management System, actions to be taken in each phase of the Emergency Cycle — Preparedness, Response, Recovery and Mitigation — were explained. The following Q&A session dealt with topics including materials salvage in situations without electricity supply, and prioritization in rescuing materials.

On September 14, an event was organized at Tohoku University in the stricken area. Prior to Mr. Robb's talk, Mr. Daisuke Sato, Executive Officer of the Miyagi Shiryounet (Network for Preserving Historical Materials), gave a presentation titled "Rescuing historical documents after the 3.11 Great Earthquake: operational activities in Miyagi Prefecture" and talked about the effort they put in to rescue historical materials in private collections. In the subsequent lecture on the emergency recovery of photographs, Mr. Robb elaborated the work of salvaging photographs damaged by the University of Hawaii Flood. After the lectures, there were many questions from the audience regarding water temperature for rinsing photographs, decontamination of radiation-exposed materials and others.

Lecture at Tohoku University

These lectures stemmed from a warm-hearted offer from the LC to send an expert on preservation to Japan, to support the salvage of damaged materials. The offer was made to the NDL in late March, soon after the earthquake.

For the content of the lectures, please refer to the transcripts and slides below:
Lecture at the NDL (September 13)
"Recovery of Library Materials from a Major Disaster"

• Slides and transcript of the lecture [PDF Format, 3,088KB]

Lecture at Tohoku University (September 14)
"Summary of Photographic Materials Group Emergency Recovery of Photographs Workshop Ottawa 2011"

• Slides and transcript of the lecture [PDF Format, 2,236KB]

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