Disaster Planning for Special Libraries

By Guy Robertson

Disaster Planning for Special Libraries contains a guide for developing and maintaining disaster plans for small special libraries and related work units.This volume serves as a reference resource, not only for people who have never considered the disaster planning process, but also for experienced planners interested in a variety of approaches to different aspects of planning.The author discusses the role of the special librarian in the planning process and considers the relationship between special libraries and their host organizations. He emphasizes the importance of coordinating a special library’s plan with any in place for its host organization, and encourages librarians to demonstrate their planning skills for organization-wide benefits.Early chapters summarize the initial phases of the planning process, which include preparedness and response measures. Subsequent chapters cover the assessment of damage to special library facilities and assets, the implications of declaring a disaster, the development of strategic alliances with key suppliers, orientation and training, succession planning, operational resumption, the normalization of library operations, and auditing a disaster plan. The concluding chapter discusses concerns that special librarians might have with regard to the future and its risks.Appendices include examples of a risk assessment and analysis and a risk mitigation program, a strike and protest plan, an emergency equipment inspection and audit report, a pandemic management program, and disaster response manager’s kit.

• Presents essential information in an accessible manner
• Considers the disaster-related needs and experiences of special library personnel
• Discusses a variety of risks to special libraries in different kinds of physical locations
• Offers different approaches to a broad range of disaster planning topics in special libraries
• Provides examples of essential planning documentation

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: Nov 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9780081010501

Guy Robertson

Based in Vancouver, Canada, Guy Robertson is a senior instructor at Langara College, where he teaches library history, reference and readers’ advisory services, and records management. He is also an instructor in information security and risk management at the Justice Institute of British Columbia. He works as a consultant to organizations across North America, and has provided advice and services to libraries, archives, records centers, and museums in Europe and Asia. Mr. Robertson is noted for his research into book and manuscript theft, data loss and protection, and financial fraud and forgery. He has delivered keynote speeches, seminars, and workshops at conferences not only for librarians and archivists, but also for other professional and technical groups.

Book preview

Disaster Planning for Special Libraries

Guy Robertson

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Copyright

Preface

How to use this book

Acknowledgments

Introduction

A note on terminology

Chapter 1. A disaster planner for your library

Abstract

1.1 The need for a plan

1.2 Consultants and their services

1.3 Before you hire a consultant

1.4 On your own

1.5 Self-assessment for your planning purposes

1.6 Other valuable skills

Chapter 2. First challenges

Abstract

2.1 Location

2.2 Apathy: causes and effects

2.3 Fear

2.4 Other people’s problem

2.5 Chicken Little

2.6 Disbelief and denial

2.7 Misplaced confidence

2.8 Magical thinking

2.9 Beginning with history

2.10 Human memory

2.11 Consult the files

2.12 The media

2.13 Reminders

2.14 The next step

Chapter 3. Assessing risks to your library

Abstract

3.1 Name that plan

3.2 Basic classification of risks

3.3 Natural disasters

3.4 Technological disasters

3.5 Human-caused disasters

3.6 Security risks

3.7 Negative events related to proximity

3.8 Crises

3.9 Enterprise risks

3.10 Combinations of risks, and the need for living documents

Chapter 4. Preparedness and risk mitigation

Abstracts

4.1 Will it sell?

4.2 The packaging

4.3 Likelihood

4.4 Vulnerability

4.5 Business impact

4.6 Risk mitigation programs (RMPs): essential elements

4.7 Budget and implementation scheduling

4.8 Auditing and updating

Chapter 5. Emergency and disaster response

Abstract

5.1 The priority: you

5.2 Emergency/disaster response plan characteristics

5.3 Practice and drills

5.4 Dealing with emotional responses

Chapter 6. Assessing the damage

Abstract

6.1 Mental reactions

6.2 External and internal inspectors

6.3 Your safe inspection of the library

6.4 Initial inspection: general effects

6.5 Secondary inspection: specific effects

6.6 Damaged collections

6.7 Final assessment

6.8 Prioritization

6.9 Recordkeeping

Chapter 7. Event recognition, disaster declaration, and crisis management

Abstract

7.1 Declaration

7.2 Communications and the right perspective

7.3 Notification

7.4 A relative scale

7.5 Decision-making data

7.6 Decision to notify personnel and/or to declare a library disaster

7.7 Gray areas

7.8 The postdisaster special library spokesperson

7.9 Crisis management plan

Chapter 8. Strategic alliances: Internal and external partners

Abstracts

8.1 Assistance to host organizations

8.2 Strategic alliances for host organizations

8.3 Key alliances for special libraries: In-house

8.4 External alliances: Insurance

8.5 External alliances: Trades and technical

8.6 External alliances: Alternative locations and transportation

8.7 A sample strategic alliance program

Chapter 9. Operational resumption, succession planning, and postdisaster workspace

Abstract

9.1 The process of operational resumption

9.2 People and succession

9.3 Stabilizing the situation

9.4 Service above all: the foundation

9.5 Emergency operations centers and other alternative locations

9.6 Letting patrons and stakeholders know

9.7 Further communications

Chapter 10. Postdisaster concerns of library personnel

Abstract

10.1 Primary concerns

10.2 What about the library and its assets?

10.3 Are our jobs safe? What about our salaries?

10.4 Can we resume operations? When?

10.5 What about our data?

10.6 What about the future of our library?

10.7 The lone special librarian

Chapter 11. Normalization

Abstracts

11.1 What it means and what impedes it

11.2 A solution

11.3 Human resources

11.4 Library normalization plan

Chapter 12. Orientation and training

Abstract

12.1 An essential ingredient

12.2 Definitions and an example

12.3 Tabletop exercises

12.4 Risk assessment and analysis example

12.5 Sample tabletop exercises

12.6 Tabletop exercises for individual special library managers and supervisors

12.7 Pandemic tabletop exercise

12.8 Tabletop exercise management tips

12.9 Conclusion

Chapter 13. Auditing your disaster plan

Abstract

13.1 Key points

13.2 Your method: the necessary steps

13.3 A questionnaire

13.4 The audit report

13.5 The postevent audit and memo

13.6 Audit presentation and sign-off

Chapter 14. Future concerns for special librarians: a personal view

Abstract

14.1 Speculation

14.2 Thinking about negative events

14.3 Concerns about natural risks

14.4 Concerns about technological risks

14.5 Concerns about human-caused risks

14.6 Concerns about proximity risks

14.7 Concerns about security risks

14.8 Concerns about crises

14.9 Concerns about enterprise risks

14.10 Concerns about cascading risks

14.11 Doing things differently

Appendix 1. Risk assessment and analysis: the Library and Records Centre of a Financial Services and Investments firm in Vancouver, British Columbia

Table of contents

I Introduction

II Methodology

III Risk assessment

IV Risk analysis

V Summary of recommendations

Appendix 2. Law firm library: risk mitigation program

Table of contents

I Introduction: program purposes

II Potential impact of negative events

III Specific risk mitigation measures for work areas

IV Specific risk mitigation measures for IT systems

V Enhancements to security procedures

VI Risk mitigation program auditing and testing

Appendix 3. Western Petroleum Research Institute Library

Strike and protest plan

Table of contents

I Introduction

II Forms of strikes and protests

III Before a strike or protest: preparedness

IV During a strike or protest: response

V After a strike or protest: debriefing and documentation

Appendix 4. Emergency equipment inspection and audit report

Table of contents

I Introduction

II Fire controls

III Moisture controls

IV First aid supplies

V Emergency tools

VI Emergency communications equipment and other resources

VII Isolation supplies

VIII The Fire Warden’s Kit

IX Primary conservation supplies

Appendix 5. Corporate library pandemic management program

Preamble

Overview

First concerns

Head librarian

Library work units/staff members

Appendix one

Appendix two

Appendix 6. Disaster response manager’s kit

Ten steps to safety and operational resumption

Section A: DRM situational safety procedures

Section B: Disaster recognition and declaration procedures/record of events

Section C: Damage assessment checklists

Basement storage room

Library IT assets: server room and workspace

Stakeholders affected by the event

The effects of the event on the local community

The effects of the event on telephone services

Section D: Strategic alliances

Section E: Emergency communications procedures

Section F: Emergency transportation plan

Section G: Normalization program

DRM’s residential emergency procedures

Further reading

Index

Copyright

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Notices

Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary.

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

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Preface

Guy Robertson, Vancouver, British Columbia

A librarian in the City of London gave me the idea for this book. She noted that while there was a growing literature on disaster planning for public and academic libraries, there was comparatively little on the topic for special libraries. She suggested that I write an article for special librarians on disaster response. Shortly thereafter George Knott, my Chandos/Elsevier editor at the time, urged me to work on something more substantial, and the result is this book.

My planning model for the present work is the same as that which I have used in previous publications. I believe that while special library collections can be valuable for numerous reasons, I consider the librarians who develop and maintain those collections to be more important. I value human life and safety more than collections. This is not to say that I concentrate on human safety alone, and would allow a collection to deteriorate or be destroyed. Nor do I ignore the importance of the buildings that house special libraries. My model emphasizes human safety while providing dedicated support for collection security and the preservation of buildings. A library’s personnel, collections, and building: lose any of these, and the survival of that library becomes doubtful. Conceptually, my model follows the standard before-during-after scheme that respects the chronological order of negative events.

I had considered including more information regarding conservation and IT security, but colleagues in London, New York, and Toronto insisted that I concentrate on matters that concerned them even more, such as pandemic management and—less urgent but undoubtedly relevant—the ways in which special libraries can develop effective disaster plans with or without the support of their host organizations. I have tried to present a balanced treatment of the risks that prevail in special libraries, but of course current events and personal prejudices have influenced my approach. I have said almost nothing about risks such as nuclear accidents, the outbreak of war, and various kinds of terrorism; nor have I discussed at length the problems that climate change might cause for conservators who struggle to save special library collections in increasingly extreme environments. I trust that future works on disaster planning for special libraries will fill these gaps. After all, the world of contingencies is vast, and the ways in which humanity addresses it is beyond the ken of any one author, or even entire generations of authors.

At the end of this book I have included a Further Reading section that cites notable works, a number of which cover subject areas that I have neglected or given short shrift. For those with a general interest in risks and disasters, I recommend the works by Perrow, Quarantelli, and Smil. In light of the novel coronavirus pandemic, I suspect that much disaster-planning literature for libraries and related institutions will follow a new direction, with a stronger concentration not only on matters of personal protection and safety in public spaces, but also on enterprise risks such as economic downturns that could force organizations in all sectors to decrease their provision of library services. Whereas in previous decades library disaster planners were most interested in collection preservation and operational resumption processes that seemed comfortably straightforward, after a global pandemic and a major recession that results in mass unemployment, planners should broaden their perspective and consider different and more complex risk profiles and our treatment of them. The Further Reading section contains items that might prove useful to planners in this regard.

Since those who work in smaller special libraries constitute my intended audience, I have not included material concerning the teams that larger libraries often establish to address various disaster-related needs. Many special libraries employ fewer than half a dozen people, and those whom I call lone librarians—who run one-person libraries—are common worldwide. Advising these people to form disaster response teams makes little sense.

I have tried to construct each chapter in such a way that it will stand on its own to cover specific topics. A small amount of repetition concerning various points has been unavoidable. Different readers will find some chapters more useful or interesting than others, and some readers might prefer to skip most of the text and extract an appendix or two with which they can enhance their disaster plans. Naturally I hope that all readers will find the entire book useful, but this is unrealistic. In the end, I encourage you to use the contents of this book in whatever ways you find useful.

For the record, I have respected the privacy of my interviewees and the confidentiality of their libraries and host organizations. I am particularly grateful to those who provided me with the true gen about the difficulties they have faced in developing their plans and getting the necessary support from their superiors to implement disaster preparedness and risk-mitigation measures. I admire these librarians for their determination to make their libraries examples of well-prepared departments in their host organizations.

May 2020

How to use this book

This book does not contain advanced first aid advice. If you are faced with a medical emergency, seek help from anyone in your vicinity who has first aid training. You can also contact first responders via telephone: for example, 911 in most North American jurisdictions, 999 or 112 in the United Kingdom, and 112 in Europe. Many countries in Asia, Oceania, Africa, and South America use 112 as well.

If you do not have a disaster plan for your special library, you can read the following chapters and appendices in order and extract any information that you require from each. Since every special library is different in a number of ways, you should adapt this information to meet your specific planning needs. Those libraries with large collections of fragile hardcopies and other media should develop strategic alliances that address the potential damage that could occur during negative events such as floods and fires. See Chapter 8, Strategic alliances: internal and external partners, for information on strategic alliances. Libraries that rely more on electronic resources should establish robust data backup practices and test their backup media regularly, for example, quarterly.

Libraries facing an imminent strike or protest can review the Strike and Protest Plan in Appendix 3. This plan covers problems that could arise during labor unrest and events that involve protests, demonstrations, and related activities.

Librarians who wish to audit the emergency equipment can consider Appendix 4, which contains lists of essentials. These lists can be adapted (or refined) for your library’s purposes.

In the event of an epidemic or pandemic—current or future—you can consider Appendix 5, which addresses many of the issues that your library is facing or will face.

Appendix 6 contains a Disaster Response Manager’s Kit that can serve as a generic disaster plan for a small special library that needs a foundation on which to develop a more detailed and location-specific plan. Lone librarians, that is, those who manage one-person libraries, might find this Appendix a good place to start their planning process, especially if they need practical procedures quickly.

If you already have a disaster plan for your library, you can review and audit it to ensure that it contains the contents (or items similar in thrust) that this book describes. Consult Chapter 13, Auditing your disaster plan, for information on auditing your plan. Feel free to extract any of the sample documents and the material in the Appendices and adapt them for inclusion in your library’s plan. For immediate response needs, you can refer to the brochure entitled Your Disaster Response Plan in Chapter 5, Emergency and disaster response. When adapted to meet the particular needs of your library’s personnel, your version of this little brochure can be used for the purposes of training and testing as well as guidance during an emergency or disaster. Keep in mind that measures to respond to negative events such as bomb threats and pandemics may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

No book on disaster planning and related fields contains all of the advice you will need to develop your library’s plan. The Further Reading section at the end of this book includes works that contain additional information that you can use to augment your plan.

Acknowledgments

I should like to thank the many special librarians who, during interviews and discussions, gave me valuable information and insights. They supported me from the time of my initial research to the final submission of the manuscript.

I am grateful to my editors at Chandos/Elsevier for their patience and good advice. George Knott encouraged me to broaden my scope, while Thomas Van Der Ploeg applied the right kind of pressure and provided welcome refreshments. Rafael Trombaco introduced me to Elsevier’s manuscript submission system and demonstrated profound forbearance when I needed to make corrections and numerous other improvements. Without my editors, this book would remain a pile of rough notes, interview transcripts, and lists.

At Langara College, Alison Curtis, Fiona Hunt, Moira Gookstetter, Serenia Tam, Diane Thompson, and Ryan Vernon gave me encouragement and excellent guidance. Among the students in my Reference and Research course in the Library and Information Technician Program, Matthew Barrett, Tony Gatner, Andrea Jensen, Aira Ng, Mandeep Nilson, and Rachel Pang merit special mention for their comments on different chapters and their diligent proofreading.

At the Justice Institute of British Columbia, Darren Blackburn, Michael Caparas, Megan Mercer, Marjory Jardine, and Sarah Wareing helped me to find useful data and to track down new contacts and sources.

At TMC IT and Telecom Consulting Inc., Peter Aggus and Ellen Koskinen-Dodgson gave me much-needed technical information and tutored me on the use of Zoom and other online chat services. I trust that we shall be able to meet face-to-face more frequently in future.

At Thurber Engineering Ltd, the late Bob Gerath, Dave Regehr, the late Dave Smith, and Cassandra Wang were generous with their time and comments on aspects of risk analysis and mitigation.

Friends and former students Ted Baker, Heather Forbes, and Melany Lund lifted my morale and provided me with wise perspectives on professional matters. I appreciate their practical approaches to problems in library management.

Others to whom I owe a debt of gratitude include the late Dave Barker, Peter Broomhall, Virginia Carpio, Sarah O. Chan, Arthur Cohen, Debasish Ghosh and the team in Chennai, Elaine Goh, David Goldie, Diane Guinn and the late Drew Lane, Hilary Hannigan, Richard Hopkins, Steve Koerner, Jeanny Louie, the late Bud Mills, Krystal Munro, Teresa Murphy, Lee and Teri Nicholas, Maureen Phillips, Nancy Richardson, Mike Rinneard, and the late Roy Stokes.

My wife Deborah Johnson gave me an enormous amount of assistance and moral support, as well as supplying Bomb Threat Briefcase, the cover photograph. Amanda, Geoff, and Roger offered technical orientation and comic relief.

I thank them all, and will not forget their efforts on my behalf. Without them I could not have written this book. Its weaknesses are mine alone.

Introduction

Originally intended as a companion volume to my Disaster Planning for Libraries: Process and Guidelines, this book can stand on its own as a guide for smaller special libraries. It follows the same general process that I have outlined in the previous volume, but concentrates on the challenges that special librarians face in developing and implementing disaster plans. I have quoted a number of these librarians verbatim. In the interests of protecting their privacy as well as the confidentiality of their host organizations, I have allowed them to remain anonymous.

Owing to numerous varying characteristics, special libraries resist generalization. For the purposes of this book, however, I note a number of characteristics that are common, and in some cases virtually the norm, including:

• Specialized patrons

• Specialized collections

• Unique materials, often created in-house

• Classified or proprietary holdings

• Responsibility for corporate records and archives

• Noncentral, remote, or out-of-the-way locations

• Smaller spaces than those of public and academic libraries

• Fewer managers and staff members than in public and academic libraries, and often employing only one person

In addition, there can exist an unfortunate attitude that one must take into account when developing a special library disaster plan. This attitude can lead to beliefs such as:

• a special library’s services can be taken for granted

• an organization’s special library is expendable

• a special library’s business resumption and postdisaster recovery should not be a priority for its host organization

Of course there are myriad exceptions to these characteristics and issues. Nevertheless, I trust that the process—or substantial parts of it—that I have described will apply to a majority of special libraries. I hope that this book will provide special libraries worldwide with useful information. All too often, one is tempted to appeal only to North American and European audiences. In doing so, one neglects one’s fellow practitioners elsewhere, particularly in Asia and Africa. Disasters and other negative events can occur anywhere on Earth; hence the need for disaster planning is universal.

It behooves anyone writing about disaster planning to warn readers that no plan is perfect, and that some measures are more appropriate than others in particular libraries. Finally, while I encourage librarians to test their plans comprehensively and often, I hope that the ultimate test—a disaster at their location—never takes place. Sadly this way of thinking can be unrealistic. What follows is an attempt to make special libraries more secure in an increasingly perilous world.

A note on terminology

I define a special library as one that provides specialized information and other resources to a particular group of patrons, such as the management and staff of a private corporation, a government department or agency, or a nonprofit organization. Although I do not address specifically the needs of larger special libraries such as those that serve law and medical schools, this definition can apply equally to them. In places and occasionally in the quoted remarks of interviewees, there are references to corporate libraries and information centers. For the general purposes of this book, it is reasonable to consider these as special libraries.

In places, I use terms such as organization and host organization to indicate the corporate body or institution that a special library serves. An organization might have a disaster plan, which I refer to as its organization-wide plan. This does not necessarily cover its library and related services.

Unless otherwise indicated, in this book I often refer to the library in reference to a special library. I find the frequent repetition of special throughout a book intended for an audience of special librarians to be tiresome and unnecessary. Moreover, a good deal of what I recommend for special libraries might be equally useful in other kinds of libraries as well as archives and records centers.

Generally I have used risk to indicate a single and specific threat such as fire, flooding, or theft. Synonymous with risk in the latter usage are danger, peril, and threat. In other contexts, such as the literature of the insurance industry, risk is a term used for the wide spectrum of negative events or contingencies.

Whereas in previous publications I have used site extensively, in this book I use location more often. Because in writing earlier publications I assumed that the majority of my readers worked in libraries that occupied entire sites, I preferred that term. But special libraries can be much smaller, and occupy only a small part of a building on a large site. Hence the use of location in this book. There may be contexts in which either term would be appropriate; I trust that my usage will not cause confusion.

I use likelihood and vulnerability in the knowledge that these terms are often employed subjectively. In many cases, levels of likelihood and vulnerability can be debated ad nauseum. Nevertheless the terms remain essential, and appear often in the literature of risk management and related subject areas.

I have used the term disaster planning frequently throughout the text. In the general field, this activity is also referred to as business continuity [or resumption, or recovery] planning, contingency planning, and emergency [response, or management] planning. As in previous publications, while I should prefer a more precise term than disaster planning, I use it because most readers will be familiar with it. In my professional practice, I make a distinction between resumption and continuity, in that the former refers to a basic and sometimes incomplete return to operations after a negative event, and the latter refers to an ongoing state of operations despite circumstances that would normally disrupt them. By recovery, I mean the full restoration of facilities and collections, and the staff members’ return to normal work schedules.

Disaster planning comprises a series of procedures, plans, programs, and other measures that enable people and organizations to prepare for, respond to, and recover from negative events of all kinds. For special libraries and other information organizations, my recommended classification of such events and their relative severity is as follows:

• An incident, for example, a minor breach of security, a small loss of data, or a minor injury at a location.

• An emergency, for example, one or more minor casualties, a small toxic spill, or the loss of valuable equipment including IT.

• A major emergency, for example, a serious casualty or casualties, extensive damage to a building or equipment that will involve serious inconvenience, or a power outage that disrupts operations for 24 hours.

• A disaster, for example, any damage to the building(s) or equipment that will disrupt operations for more than 48 hours, any natural event (e.g., high winds, winter storm, earthquake) that disrupts transportation or communications for more than 48 hours, or any serious loss of vital data (e.g., borrower data that have been lost).

• A catastrophe, for example, a large regional disaster that disrupts conditions across an entire region for an extended period of time, and that involves multiple casualties and the loss of facilities.

• A crisis, for example, an event involving negative media coverage and adverse public relations during or following any of the above circumstances.

All of the earlier-mentioned terms have been used in different ways by other authors, organizations, professions, and industries. I trust that readers will find my usage helpful, even though they might prefer different terms.

Chapter 1

A disaster planner for your library

Abstract

Disasters can inspire senior managers to demand comprehensive disaster planning for entire organizations. Previous organization-wide disaster plans might not address the needs of an organization’s special library. Libraries can hire consultants to develop disaster plans that concentrate on library staff members, collections, and facilities. A consultant’s qualifications and personal attributes should include planning experience, appropriate academic training, and certification, as well as soft skills such as good listening skills, enthusiasm, empathy, and the ability to ask appropriate questions. Library and Information Studies programs offer courses related to disaster planning such as conservation, library planning and design, and facilities management, but dedicated training in disaster planning and related fields is uncommon. Key aspects arising from hiring a consultant include availability, costs, deliverables, and follow-up. Consulting costs are a major concern for many librarians. Those who decide to develop plans on their own should begin with a general philosophy or approach to planning. Their first priority should be life safety.

Keywords

Disaster; special libraries; consultants; personal attributes; soft skills; availability; costs; deliverables; general philosophy; life safety

1.1 The need for a plan

Everyone in your host organization is talking about the latest disaster, which has filled newspaper front pages and top spots on media websites for days. What is it? A huge flood in China, or an earthquake in California, or a nuclear accident in Russia. Perhaps there has been another terrorist bombing in London or New York. Meanwhile a new hurricane gathers strength in the Atlantic, and the people of Cuba and Puerto Rico wonder if—once again—they should prepare for high winds and storm surges. But disasters do not necessarily affect entire regions. They can strike a single city block, or a single building, or one floor of a building. In this high-tech age, damage to the server under a cataloguer’s desk could result in the loss of vital data without which your library—and in some cases your entire organization—cannot function. Often disasters start small and grow in magnitude to the point where their effects can be devastating.

The vice-president of your organization decides that comprehensive, corporate-wide disaster planning is needed. Years ago a consultant was retained to develop a plan, which sits in a single three-ring binder somewhere in your building. The plan has never been tested. In fact, it has never been opened since the consultant delivered it. In any case, it is now badly out-of-date and would not serve your host organization’s purposes if a disaster were to occur. The vice-president asks every department—including your library—to develop appropriate materials to meet emergency needs in the event of a disaster. The old plan does not mention the library. You must start afresh. But what should you do now? Consider your options. The first that many organizations and their librarians consider is the hiring of an external service provider, either a firm of consultants who specialize in disaster