Schools are developing "Tragedy Response Toolkits." Incidents of school violence are ever more frequent. Get prepared for school shootings! That's a reasonable thing to do.
Police agencies, of course, must also prepare for school violence and terrorist attacks. The federal government Office for Victims of Crime has a Tragedy Response Toolkit to meet this need.
And what about the archivists? You know, archivists are the people whose job it is to find and index the documents that can tell future generations about what happened in the past. Don't they need a Tragedy Response Toolkit, too?
It appears they do, and it appears they have one:
The Tragedy Response Initiative Task Force is responsible for 1) creating and/or compiling material for ready accessibility by archivists who are facing a sudden tragedy and 2) exploring the feasibility of creating a standing body within SAA that would update documentation as needed and serve as a volunteer tragedy response team.
The Task Force is currently drafting templates, examples, and guidelines for institutions who need assistance responding to a disaster. In the meantime, if your institution has an immediate need for the documentation (understanding that these may still be in draft form), please contact the Task Force at saahq@archivists.org.
A friend of mine thought it was sad that even the "archivists" are now getting themselves organized and prepared for the future tragedies and incidents of violence that we all expect to be coming. Why sad? Because we are starting to accept school shootings, shootings in places of employment, and similar mass attacks as a kind of inevitable component of our modern life.
I do agree that's sad. But what else can we do?
Well, what about a Tragedy Prevention Toolkit? Maybe we all could start working on that!
Image Credit:
https://www.acsa.org/Advocacy/school-crisis-toolkit
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comment!