Blog posts

Automatically posted to social. Commit to at least 1 post per month. Monthly summary of posts (whether it’s only one post, or more) via email.

Topics discussed on the blog can include: 

  • Educational / topics of interest to community in narrative form
  • Spotlights
  • News coverage of current events, topical information
  • Trainings, Workshops, Relevant events coming up
  • Reviews of external resources and guides
  • Conference/workshop recaps 
  • Exec committee & other COSTEP MA news

Social media

commit to at least 1 post every month, in addition to blog post blasts for facebook. Twitter: mostly RTs & blog blasts.  

Email

Alerts of extreme weather

Ben Haavik (Historic New England) is sending these out. 

  • opt-in for new signees [Should we ask our entire email list (122) if they wish to opt-in to the weather alerts? —- maybe not, but we can provide opt-outs for them?]  
  • A decision support briefing is sent from both BOX and ALY National Weather Service stations in advance of extreme weather. COSTEP will forward on only one decision support briefing, in its entirely, with an extremely brief summary; links on where to stay updated; and a brief topical note about the weather’s potential impact on collections. (We cannot reasonably commit to updating dynamic weather situations, so we will point to partners who can do a better job, i.e., NWS, MEMA.)

Weather alert email template update from EK, following the above policy notes.

Email notification of extreme weather, template
  • Email Title: Event; Locations; Dates
  • Forward NWS briefing as-is, as an attachment if possible. (I tried but couldn’t find out how to attach a file in mailchimp so I’ve uploaded the briefing to the our site and linked to it.)
  • 1 sentence at top, in bold: estimated event, impacts, and locations. Can be copied verbatim from NWS briefings.
  • Links to MEMA Alerts, NWS BOX, NWS ALY, National Hurricane Center, etc., to stay updated
  • 1 or 2 COSTEPM MA tips.

Regarding the tips: Aren’t buildings and especially historic structures most vulnerable to extreme weather? Let’s focus on building (pardon the pun) up good practices with regard to preparing buildings, whether old or new, in the face of weather. Can we write up some tips beforehand, so that we can drop them in easily when the time comes, depending on the event, of course. We could occasionally include tips for other types of ‘normal’ library/archive/museum buildings, like ‘what to do if flooding hits’, or to make sure plastic sheeting is covering areas of known leaks, etc. Can we make a call to colleagues to gather these tips, or collect them at an interactive panel/ lunchtime activity, at our symposium?

Additional Email policies:

Beyond the baseline of blog post summaries and opt-in weather alerts is tbd. To consider: invite-only stuff?, vendors/marketing?