Disaster preparedness awareness among library professionalsin Rajasthan state university libraries

Abstract

The libraries are the store house of knowledge resources and cultural wealth. Hence it is the duty of libraries to provide protection to their collection and services. The disaster management in libraries has become a critical issue in the recent years due to many hazards like fire, flood, earthquake, system crash and many other types of unpredictable disasters that may harm the library resources and infrastructure. Hence it is the need of the hour for librarians to prepare and plan for disasters to protect the library materials and to continue the library services. So the main objective of the present study is to know the librarians? awareness towards disaster preparedness in State University Libraries of Rajasthan. The study was carried out by the means of descriptive survey method. A structured questionnaire was designed to collect the data for the study and it was distributed among the librarians in the selected state universities of Rajasthan. The findings of the study reveals that the librarians have primary idea about the disaster management but they are not prepared to manage any disaster. The libraries do not have a formal disaster management plan. Hence the study concludes that the librarians have to know more about disaster management, they have to prepare a disaster management plan, they have to undergo training so that they will manage the disaster situation more effectively. Hence the recommendations are that the libraries must have formal disaster management policy and preparedness plan in order to protect the library resources and infrastructure and to manage any disaster situation efficiently.