FIRE IN THE ARCHIVE: Response and Recovery
Fireman tending to the controlled burn of library bookshelf fire. Last month I attended the Illinois Fire Service Institute Burn Simulation and Recovery Workshop . Sponsored by the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI), the event aimed to teach archivists and librarians how to cope with fires in cultural heritage institutions and schools. The first half of the workshop was in-class presentations. The two speakers were: Eddie Bain , Investigator/Public Information Officer with the Savoy Fire Department, and Jennifer Hain Teper , Head of Preservation Services at University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Bain, with over 40 years of firefighting experience, presented on fire prevention in today’s modern environment. Teper introduced us to fire disaster planning, which focused on assessing the damage, planning for recovery, and salvage operations. Aftermath of five minute fire on library materials The second half of the workshop inclu