Preservation Services recently hosted hands-on training sessions for library staff. The topic was Collections Emergency Response, focusing on what to do in the first few minutes after an emergency is detected.

In the past we have staged metaphorically and sometimes literally immersive, full-day training. Participant feedback emphasized how overwhelming emergencies are. Yes, that is often true, but we didn’t want that to be the main takeaway from training. So, this year we re-tooled the experience to de-emphasize shock value. Instead, we focused on the skills that participants...