Different Aspects of Disaster Management Activities at Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Amarkantak (M.P.): A Case study

Shraddha Shahane¹

¹ Librarian, Government Arts and Commerce College, Mohana, Distt Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India.

shraddhashahane25@gmail.com

*Corresponding author: shraddhashahane25@gmail.com

This paper focuses on the various aspects of the disaster management system in the perspective of Indira Gandhi National Tribal University (Amarkantak). This paper aims to know that which type of disaster is faced by the library. The study also reveals that which type of preventive measures are adopting by the library. Disaster plan in written format is essential for each library. Hence it is necessary to identify the actual position of the written disaster plan. Generally, it finds that the library is not fully aware of disaster handling capacity. Therefore this study presents the adopting procedural steps by this library. A questionnaire is prepared and used to collect information. The result of the study is helpful for the preparation of future policies in the library.

Keywords:  Disaster, Disaster management, Disaster plan, Disaster team, Preservation section

1.     Introduction:

Libraries are the store-house of books which works on the collection, organisation, preservation and dissemination of information. In other words, Libraries are also an important component of society. These perform some important liability for the growth of society & transmit cultural heritage among different generations. But several times, these face dangerous situations and lost their reading materials, human life and services. Destruction or damage of libraries means the loss of nation in the perspective of economic, cultural and educational level.

Due to global warming and destructive activities of humankind, various types of disasters have occurred in the whole world. Nowadays traditional libraries are converting into the digital library but the digital library is also suffered from a disaster situation. Due to facing disaster situation, lots of precious and valuable information material, staff, library building and other infrastructure are to be damaged. Normally Libraries are functioning for the present generation and preserving information for the future generation. But at the time of disaster hit, library and information centre is to paralyse for its functioning.

2.     Disaster:

A disaster is an unexpected event or unpredictable incident which disrupts normal activities of the library. It is an occurrence arising without warning. In other words, it happened at any time and its result is in the form of serious destruction. Destruction can find in the form of damage of library building, loss of library resources and equipment, loss of human and interruption in library services. According to the Oxford English Dictionary" - disaster is an “anything that befalls of ruinous or distressing nature; a sudden or great misfortune, mishap, or misadventure; a disaster”.

     It is a calamitous incident, which interrupts the daily lives of the library and librarians and other staff and extra efforts are to be done for providing normal activities of the library at that time.

3.     Disaster types:-

     Various ancient libraries have fully or partially destroyed due to facing different types of disasters e.g. Ancient Nalanda university library- Dharmaganja, Library of Alexandria, Library situated at the University of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Library situated at University of Louvain (Belgium) etc. Disaster can be happened due to the climatic phenomena or man-made error. Libraries are facing natural disaster in the form of rain, flood and cyclone, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, cold and heatwave, thunderstorms, tsunamis, avalanches, landslides, cloud bursts, dust storms, wildfires and much more. In other type of disaster is man-made which happens in the form of war and terrorism, fires, water leakage, building deficiencies, biological damages, micro-organisms, insects or bug infestation, system failure, collapse of shelving, indoor structural accident, vandalism and arson, theft and burglary, electric short circuits, riots, social and political unrest etc.

   Disaster is an unscheduled phenomenon which disturbs the normal library services of affected libraries. Generally, it occurs suddenly at a certain place and its effect is experienced over a long period. Lots of effort takes by the librarian to overcome the effect of the disaster.

4.     Literature Review:

Various studies have been conducted in the area of disaster planning in the libraries. Few studies provide guidelines for the libraries to preserve their reading materials for the future generation. Buchanan (1981) explained the different disaster factors responsible for the damaging library collection. She suggested the preparation of a disaster plan and adopted preventive measures for libraries. She gave the suggestions for building construction and repair, regularly clean drainpipe, gutter, and roof, check smoke and water lines regularly. She also explained the importance of insurance in perspective of the library. She also gave suggestions about the training of staff for use of Fire extinguishers. She also mentioned about the protection of microfilms, photographs etc from fire and water disasters.Sriganesh and Iyer (2013) explained the role of information to develop one disaster system. Libraries can help to overcome the information gap for developing a disaster system. The requirement of disaster management database and clearinghouse for information are the important steps for which library can play an important role to establish it. Library overcomes the information gap between pre, during and post disaster conditions. In India, some institute is established for prevention and they are maintaining their own databases for the planning of disaster conditions.

Rehman (2014) explored the various kinds of disaster situation faced by the libraries. He also explained the various measures and recovery plan for handling disaster situations in the perspective of libraries. All these factors are damaging the library & its collection. Lots of preventing steps are taken by the library for saving its collection. The library is developing disaster recovery plans for the future. Zaveri,(2014) explained here water-related disasters which damaged library materials, premises and furniture. She stated that flood, tsunami, heavy rain, wind, hurricanes, cyclones, tornados, broken drainage pipes, wall-leakages, crakes in windows, doors and floor, use water sprinklers to extinguish the fire were some causes of water-related damages. Water damaged to paper-based material, photographs, films and digital resources. She discussed previous examples of various libraries of the whole world which were damaged wholly or partially due to disasters. She described here various steps for recovery of a paper-based material, photographs, CD/DVDs, Microfilm/Microfiche which were damaged due to water. She advised that each library must have insurance which should be covered to library premises, collection and furniture. Emergency Kit and contact details should always be kept ready to use condition. Gupta, (2016) wrote in the newspaper which described the damage of lots of library material due to human error in the National Library of India Kolkata. Due to leakage of AC plant and broken window, lots of water was entered in the Bhasa Bhavan Section where lots of precious and priceless periodicals and newspapers were kept. One day library staff opened the door of this section and found that 2000 sq feet space was inundated. In this section, approximately 3 lakhs books were kept. Library staff used the emergency alarm system for salvage the inundated materials. All library staff was made a human for the rescue of materials. These efforts were insufficient and approximately 60000 periodicals and newspaper had been destroyed. Responsibilities by the director and CPWD were not properly done. Sharma, Deka, & Das (2018) stated about the different aspects of disaster planning in libraries. They studied about the actual position of disaster management in the Universities of Assam. They explained the disasters in the form as natural disaster, accidental failures, and criminal damages. They described the set up of a committee for disaster management; conduct the orientation programs, importance of the written form of the disaster plan. They also explained the importance of training for library staffs and fund. They also explained about the different preventive equipment adopted by libraries. They also found that the results of the study were not satisfactory. Begum, Roknuzzaman & Shobhanee (2021) explained the new role of public libraries situated at the Bangladesh. This study described the role and working attitude of libraries in the Covid -19 pandemic. Authors explained that various libraries were closed and postponed their services due to this type of disasters. In this study, various suggestions were given on redesigning library services.

5.     Scope of the study:

   The study is limited up to Indira Gandhi National Tribal University situated at Amarkantak (M.P.).The University is established in July 2008 under the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University Act 2007 of the Parliament of India. The University is funded by the Central Government. The university aims to provide higher education in a long time to the tribal. The Amarkantak is famous hill station of Madhya Pradesh. The Amarkantak is situated at a unique heritage area. It is situated between Satpura and Vindhyachal mountain ranges. It is located at hilly, dense forest and river area. The weather of the place is mostly cold and heavy rain. The average temperature in Amarkantak is 21.7⁰C and annual average rainfall is 1364 mm. The temperature varies from maximum 46⁰C to minimum 2⁰C.

6.     About the Library:

The University library is known as Prof. Ram Dayal Munda Central Library. The University library is functioning since July 2009. The library has the collection of print material up to 60,000. The total employees of the library are 10 in which 4 professionals, 4 semi-professionals and 2 non-professionals are included.

7.     Research questions:

(i)       To know the experience of disaster faced by the University Library.

(ii)     To know the preventive measures taken by the University Library.

(iii)   To know the existence of a written disaster plan.

(iv)   To know the existence of trained disaster team.

(v)     To know the existence of the preservation section.

8.     Methodology :

The main aim of the study is to know the actual preparation of the IGNTU-Library (Amarkantak) regarding disasters situations. The survey research design method is used to collect information from the library. A questionnaire is used as the main tool for data collection. Tables are used to analysis of collected data.

9.     Analysis of data:

(a)   Experience of disaster faced by IGNTU-Library (Amarkantak):

Generally, disasters divide into two categories:-Natural and man-made. The library may face the disaster in the form of flood, landslide, cloud-burst, heavy-rain, arson theft, vandalism, biological and chemical. Due to the geographical location, the library faces a natural disaster in the form of heavy rain. (Table.1 & 2).In heavy rainy days, the library faces the leakage problem in the form of roof leakage. The previous experience of the disaster affected 25% of library collection. Library services were interrupted up to one month due to this disaster experience.

Table:1 Disasters at IGNTU-Library

Table-2 Experience of different kinds of disasters

(b)  Adopting preventive measures taken by University Library:

Library Building: Library is functioning from the separate building which is constructed in multi-storied. The few parts of the library are also situated in the basement. Multi-story and basement are the reasons of biological disaster and other disasters. The evacuation procedure of human and library materials become difficult when multi floors and basements construct at the library. The whole part of the library building is not fully water-proofed. In this situation, every library building should have the appropriate emergency gate for evacuation purpose but this library building has not kept any emergency gate. Several times libraries face the biological and fire disaster arisen due to eating and smoking habits of library employees. To avoid the circumstances, it is necessary that strictly prohibit for eating and smoking at the library stack room. This library strictly follows this rule. The library cleaning staff should use a vacuum cleaner for cleaning the rooms and books but IGNTU library cleans dust manually. Therefore the possibility of biological disaster can be increased. The library building is in danger zone.

Furnished equipment at the IGNTU-Library:

Table 3 reveals that the library furnished only with CCTV and fire extinguisher. Other equipment are not furnished in the library which is necessary to avoid the disaster incident. Various furnished equipment at the libraries needs regularly uninterrupted electric supply. Without power-supply library faces the problem to maintain the temperature and humidity level. The IGNTU library is in danger zone due to the unavailability of below-mentioned equipment. These equipment needs regular checking and maintenance otherwise these are not usable at the time of disaster incident. The library is regularly checked their furnished equipment yearly. The library is not fully adopting preventive measures.

Table – 3 Different types of furnished equipment

(c)   Existence of a written disaster plan at IGNTU Library:

A disaster plan is a written document in which procedures for different phases (i.e. prevention, preparedness, response and recovery) is predetermined and applied accordingly to avoid the destruction of disaster. A disaster plan should always prepare in written format and keep in different places and staff members. The disaster plan should always revise after happening any disaster incident. The IGNTU Library has not existed any disaster plan in written format. Library administrator gave the reason regarding non-availability of a disaster plan is lack of resources. It is clearly shown the library administrator is not fully prepared for handling disaster incident.

(d)  Existence of trained disaster team at IGNTU Library:

     The success of disaster plan depends on the trained disaster team. The disaster team is prepared from that personnel who are interested in this field and take appropriate training for it. The efforts of the disaster team must aim to minimize the destruction in any disaster happening. This study explores that no disaster team is maintained by the IGNTU library. This library organises neither training programmes nor mock drill programmes regularly to their library staff. The Library administrator should always keep regularly updated contact number of emergency services such as fire brigade, police, ambulance etc. The administrator of the IGNTU library is not updated regularly the contact numbers of emergency services. Therefore it is the more possibility that the library cannot immediately contact with emergency agencies and destruction will more. Every library should also maintain and provide emergency kit at the time of disaster. This library has not maintained it.

(e)   Existence of Preservation section at IGNTU library:

Every library should have a separate preservation section. In this section, a conservation expert should be appointed. This section should fully furnish with the necessary equipment. But IGNTU library has not maintained separate preservation section. In this situation, this library unable to recover their damaged materials immediately.

10.  Recommendations:

This study reveals that IGNTU Library is not fully prepared for handling the disaster situation. Disaster management is a neglected area for this library. Library administrator has kept low-level knowledge regarding in this area. They keep it at the bottom in their priority. Firstly, it is necessary to change the attitude of the librarian and other library professionals concerning the handling capacity disaster. Disaster can happen anytime anywhere. Then it is necessary to change the behaviour of library professionals regarding adopted procedures related to furnished equipment.

The library administrator should consult with an expert to prepare a disaster plan in written format on available resources. Various seminars and conferences should organise to aware of their library staff. Library administrator should recognise the few employees for preparing a disaster team. Library administrator should regularly organise mock drill and follow other procedures for managing disaster happenings.

 Library administrator should send their requirement to the higher authority for the appointment of preservation expert and establishment of separate preservation section.

11.  Conclusion:

An area of disaster planning is a neglected field in the University library. University library is the heart of University. The University expends lots of budgets to maintain their library. The university library should preserve its collection for the future. IGNTU library is also faced in the same situation. It is necessary for the IGNTU library that administration should prepare an appropriate policy framework in their library for handling disaster situation. The awareness programmes are helpful to handle the disaster situation.

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