RALEIGH — As North Carolina enters another hurricane season, an updated Web site is now available to assist cultural institutions such as archives libraries, museums and historic sites plan for and recover from natural disasters.
The newly redesigned Web site for the North Carolina State Historical Records Advisory Board (SHRAB) includes a comprehensive section on disaster preparedness at http://www.history.ncdcr.gov/SHRAB/disaster.htm.
The disaster preparedness link provides access to generic plan templates, assessment guides, funding sources, educational resources and many other tools to assist cultural repositories in writing disaster preparedness plans. In addition to resources about disaster preparedness planning, there are also links to general information about the care and handling of archival materials.
“The disaster preparedness section of the new SHRAB Web site should prove an extremely helpful resource to all institutions large and small that need vital information about emergency and disaster preparedness,” stated Dr. Jeffrey Crow, Deputy Secretary for Archives and History, N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. “We spent months gathering data and designing a site that contains relevant and current information about how to protect North Carolina’s valuable cultural heritage collections.”
The State Historical Records Advisory Board is North Carolina’s central advisory body for historical records planning, preservation and access within the state. Funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the SHRAB facilitates cooperation among historical records repositories and other information and cultural agencies within the state. In North Carolina, the SHRAB is assisted by staff of the North Carolina State Archives, part of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, which hosts the Web site.
The SHRAB also begins a new project in August; the “Traveling Archivist Program” will provide hands-on consultation for the care and handling of archival material held in cultural repositories throughout the state.
For more information about SHRAB activities and programs, contact Dick Lankford, State Archivist, at (919) 807-7308 or e-mail him at jesse.lankford@ncdcr.gov.