According to “WHO”: “Disaster is any occurrence that causes damage, destruction, ecological disruption, loss of human life, human suffering, deterioration of health and health services on a scale sufficient to warrant an extraordinary response from outside the affected community or area”.

What is Disaster? A disaster is a sudden, unexpected event that seriously disrupts the functioning of a community or society and causes human, material, and economic or environmental losses that exceed the community’s or society’s ability to cope using its own resources. Though often caused by nature, disasters can have human origins

Dictionary of Library and Information Services Defines The Dictionary for Library and Information Service defines a “disaster Prevention” is a set of written procedures prepared by the library staff in advance to deal with an unexpected occurrence that has the potential to cause damage to library collections and services.

Disaster Prevention in Library and Information Centers Disaster management plan is a must be incorporated in initial planning of establishing a library and information centre. The disaster and its control mechanism normally go through three stages – Before, During, After.

All these three stages are kept in mind while planning to minimize the impact and recover out of potential emergencies. Each disaster plan must cover whole of the library and information centre including staff, readers, sources of information, equipment and infrastructure and it must be a team effort.

Types of Disaster “Natural Disasters” • Rain and wind storms • Floods • Earthquakes • Volcanic eruptions

“Man-Made Disasters” • Acts of war and terrorism • Fires • Water • Explosions • Liquid chemical spills • Building deficiencies (structure, design, environment, maintenance) • Power failures

Single Switch Control

Response When disaster strikes. • Follow established emergency procedures for raising the alarm, evacuating personnel and making the disaster site safe • Contact the leader of the disaster response team to direct and brief the trained salvage personnel • When permission is given to re-enter the site, make a preliminary assessment of the extent of the damage, and the equipment, supplies and services required.

• Discard items not worth retaining, and replace or re-bind items not justifying special conservation treatment. • Contact insurers. • Clean and rehabilitate the disaster site. • Replace treated material in the refurbished site. • Analyze the disaster and improve the plan in the light of experience.