{"id":776,"date":"2019-04-23T19:59:10","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T19:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/?page_id=776"},"modified":"2019-04-23T19:59:10","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T19:59:10","slug":"cultural-institutions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/cultural-institutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Institutions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There are many stewards of Massachusetts arts, culture, and history that are a part of COSTEP MA. Join the network to meet and talk with colleagues about current issues in disaster preparedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooperation, collaboration, and communication are of vital importance to saving cultural resources. Keep these tenets in mind as you learn more about the best practices in Mitigation, Planning & Preparation, Response, and Recovery for cultural heritage institutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Internal Cooperation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Institutional collaboration is required for success in every step of emergency management. Administration, Facilities, Security, and Collections staffs must be on the same page for effective disaster planning, mitigation, response, and recovery. Having understood priorities and roles before a disaster is important, as is having clear and pre-defined channels of communication. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Community-Wide Collaboration<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

All disasters are local, and many of us would love to be able to handle whatever comes our way by ourselves. Yet the reality is that emergencies and disasters can grow beyond our independent resources, and there may be a need to call for help. In these critical moments, wouldn\u2019t it be a relief to call someone you already know and trust\u2014someone who understands your collections and can step right in to help?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COSTEP MA can help you set up this support network among the cultural\n institutions in your community, and we can help this network integrate \ninto the larger emergency management plan for your city or town. \nConsider the following scenario: Days of steady rain have led to a rise \nin a town\u2019s water table. Water starts seeping into the basement of Town \nHall, where boxes of permanent records are stored. The town clerk has \nattended several community meetings facilitated by COSTEP MA, and as a \nresult knows the town\u2019s library director and the director of the local \nhistorical society. The town clerk gives them a call, and the library \ndirector is able to send over supplies for boxing up wet records, and \nthe historical society director offers the use of freezer space to \nstabilize the boxes until they can be properly dried. The town clerk \nalso calls the local emergency management director, who is able to \ndeploy some manpower to the scene to help with the response. \nAdditionally, a call is placed to COSTEP MA and assistance from the \nMassachusetts State Archives and the Massachusetts Board of Library \nCommissioners arrives on site by the end of the day to help assess the \nsituation and plan for recovery. The town clerk is confident that \nappropriate help will be provided because the relationships were \nestablished before<\/em> the emergency; the town clerk was not left scrambling to figure out who to turn to in the midst of the crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Case Study in Salem<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"Arthur<\/a>
Arthur Dutil speaks at the Risk Assessment Training session at Harwich, MA on May 15, 2014.        Courtesy Andy Grilz<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A real-life example of this support network is the Salem Chapter<\/a>\n of COSTEP MA. A wide range of cultural institutions in Salem has banded\n together to explore mitigation, preparedness, and response activities \ntogether. The group also has close ties to the first responders in their\n city, especially in the fire department.  If the scenario above \noccurred in Salem, they would be ready. They would know who to call. \nWouldn\u2019t you love to have that same certainty? You can, and COSTEP MA \ncan help you get there. A great way to start developing this support \nnetwork in your community is with a Community Meeting<\/a>.\n These meetings allow cultural institutions to get together while also \nbringing in your town or city\u2019s emergency management personnel. You \ndon\u2019t want to be exchanging business cards with your city or town\u2019s \nEmergency Management Director (EMD) during <\/em>an emergency. Not sure who your EMD is? Check out the Emergency Management Director directory available on the homepage of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency<\/a>. Then contact your EMD. You\u2019ll both be glad you did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communication and Planning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Internal and external cooperation, collaboration, and communication don’t just grow on their own. Planning is necessary to set up the foundation for successful emergency response and recovery. Explore COSTEP MA’s website for links, templates, and guidance on emergency response planning, disaster plans, salvage, and funding links for various types of cultural heritage collections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are many stewards of Massachusetts arts, culture, and history that are a part of COSTEP MA. Join the network to meet and talk with colleagues about current issues in disaster preparedness. Cooperation, collaboration, and communication are of vital importance to saving cultural resources. Keep these tenets in mind as you learn more about the … Continue reading Cultural Institutions<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-776","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","no-featured-image"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}