Disaster Management Planning for Archaeological Archives

Planning for disasters is essential for all organisations holding archaeological archives. This applies equally to commercial organisations holding archival material on a temporary basis as it does to the final repositories of those archives.

Disaster management planning can be straightforward, using both in-house skills and knowledge combined with shared information and advice from other stakeholders to establish a disaster management plan.

A disaster management plan must:

• set out Prevention techniques to minimise risk

• set out Preparedness procedures for the eventuality of disaster

• establish an emergency manual for Reaction in the event of a disaster

• outline considerations for a Recovery plan following the disaster

This paper sets out in the required detail the considerations that need to be addressed in preparing and implementing a disaster management plan for archaeological archives.

Institute of Field Archaeologists Paper number 8