In wrapping up this week’s video edition from the recently held #PreserveAfricaArchives online forum, Rafael de Luna Freire, a Professor at the Federal Fluminense University, shared his experience with disaster planning and risk management.
In the course of the engagement, experiences and strategies were presented relating to how to prepare for disasters and the best method to prevent materials from unnecessary deterioration.
Freire highlighted that most disasters are human inflicted and, therefore, preventable. He noted that prevention measures are discoverable when thoroughly assessing plans for collection safeguarding, post-crisis recovery, and risk reduction. Furthermore, Rafael stated that most fires, for example, are related to a lack of structural maintenance. However, he reiterated that a lack of financial resources and human resources as the most significant threats in managing disasters.
Rafael accentuated that disaster happens not only to physical libraries but also to digital libraries whereby digitised content disappears silently without people of the archive realising. Therefore it is vital to safeguard against digital disasters as well. Nonetheless, creating copies in the cloud may mitigate this, but it means investing more financial resources that organisations lack.
To watch Rafael de Luna Freire’s snippet sharing his experience on causes of disasters, deterioration and preservation methods, please CLICK HERE!
“Risks And Disaster Safeguarding For Audio-Visual Archives In Africa” online forum was brought to you by Broadcast Media Africa, in partnership with its programme partner, Apricity Consulting.
The forum aimed to showcase how adequate staff training and collection knowledge can prevent a host of potential disasters with audio-visual archives.