Quick Tips for Disasters & Emergencies: Don’t Table This! The Importance of Tabletop Exercises for your Disaster Plan

William Schlaack, Digital Reformatting Coordinator, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

After creating your institution’s disaster plan it may seem like a good idea to give yourself a pat on the back and tell yourself and your colleagues “Job well done!” Certainly, this is a good first step, but your next step should be to consider planning a tabletop exercise to see, in a controlled setting, just how good your plan really is. Tabletop exercises are guided sessions led by a facilitator(s) to simulate an emergency. These sessions allow staff specified in the disaster plan to discuss and better understand their role during various disasters. 

Tabletop exercises can range from short and relatively mundane events (e.g., a burst pipe in a collection space) to large and catastrophic (e.g., a fire in the archives, a large-scale mold outbreak in a rare book vault, or a catastrophic event such as a tornado that impacts personnel in addition to collection concerns). Keep in mind that some events, such as a fire, often lead to additional complications such as water damage from sprinklers and subsequent mold growth due to poor air circulation and moisture control because of water damage coupled with time needed for the complete fire response and investigation. Smaller, localized disasters can result in a short tabletop exercise of under an hour with only a few staff involved. Larger simulations may require a full day or more and include all staff mentioned in your disaster plan; this exercise can even include local first responder representatives. 

Tabletop exercises exist to test existing policies and plans, reveal weak points, and encourage staff participation in disaster planning. Tabletop exercises can often serve as a teaching tool for both preservation staff who find new ways to resolve issues and other staff who make new connections on how preservation fits into their roles. 

Despite the seriousness of the simulated disaster, the tabletop exercise itself should focus on expanding knowledge of the tasks those in assigned roles may need to complete and the communication channels they will need to be familiar with during a disaster. Often, successful tabletop exercises will lead to revision of the disaster plan with updated responsibilities and strategies.

These exercises are a great, scalable opportunity that an institution of any size can undertake to ensure the practical feasibility and relevance of their disaster plan. 

For further information I highly recommend the examples provided by Guy Robertson in the Disaster Planning for Libraries : Process and Guidelines, citation below.

References

California Preservation Program. “Disaster Plan Exercise.” 

Page, J. A. Taking Disaster Planning to the Next Level: Table Top Exercise. (October 3, 2012).    

NEDCC Staff. “Preservation Leaflets: Emergency Management 3.3 Emergency Planning.” Northeast Document Conservation Center. (2017). 

Robertson, Guy. Disaster Planning for Libraries: Process and Guidelines. Amsterdam: Chandos Publishing, Print. (2015). (Subscription required to access electronic version.)

Includes a chapter on tabletop exercises and includes the following topics: “Basic tabletop exercises,” “No plan without practice,” “Generic tabletop exercises,” “Tabletops for managers,” “Pandemic influenza exercises,” and “Tabletop exercise management tips.” 

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