Some of these titles are listed in the bibliography, and many libraries have put up useful information about creating disaster plans on their web sites, also described and linked below. The safety of staff and patrons must come first, followed by reclamation of collections and restoration of services. Continuity planning requires that you know what your core services are, and what you would need to set up these basic services in the event of disaster. For a public library, this may mean a basic reference collection, electronic backups for circulation and the OPAC stored in a separate location, and access to a contained power supply. It is critically important when first thinking about disaster planning to know what the library's core services are, and what is needed to keep them going.
Someone needs to be in charge.
In any disaster, there needs to be a person empowered to make decisions fast and to implement them. A disaster planning notebook is essential, listing suppliers of disaster recovery services, insurance coverage, vendor support, and so on. This notebook should also have the home telephone numbers of all library staff as well as the home phone numbers of any municipal employees or trustees whose sign-off might be necessary to the library. While a copy should be at the library, another copy should be kept somewhere accessible in case the library isn't. No disaster plan can save systems or collections if powers beyond the library's do not permit access to a site within a reasonable length of time after a disaster, or if funds are not released in a reasonable length of time to deal with it.