Disasters: The Stories We Share at Columbia University Libraries

It has been an honor working on the NEH-funded Sharing Stories of Community Resilience to Disasters: Designing a New Model for Collaborative Traveling Exhibits project as the co-PI with Susanne Caro (PI, New Mexico State University) and Jen Kirk (co-PI, Utah State University) since September 2020. Throughout these past years, we’ve learned a lot about the logistics, challenges, and areas of opportunity that come with orchestrating a customizable traveling exhibit—and we hope to share more updates and lessons learned in the near future! At this moment, Columbia University Libraries is designated as the current exhibit host. Some interesting projects that have so far come out of this opportunity:

• In collaboration with awesome colleagues Social Work and Professional Studies Librarian Kae Bara Kratcha and Journalism and Government Information Librarian Emily Schmidt, we came up with an evolving web page that lists resources and insights related to Rikers Island and prisons at large. Specifically, this web entry examines whether prisons or correctional facilities can be considered “disasters” in their own right. When institutions of imprisonment are framed as the byproducts of bad policymaking, they can be understood as human-made disasters that harm marginalized and oppressed people.
• In partnership with the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP), part of Columbia University’s Climate School, faculty and staff from NCDP facilitated a session on October 11th that unpacked the question of, “Are disasters natural?” Josh DeVincenzo (Assistant Director of Education and Training, Adjunct Lecturer, NCDP) presented an introduction to disaster studies by focusing on different narratives of disasters as well as provide background on how disaster researchers and practitioners evaluate risks, disaster impacts, and inequities throughout the disaster lifecycle. Additionally, Thomas Chandler (Deputy Director, Adjunct Associate Professor, NCDP) provided attendees a summation of the current state of disaster research and practice, Luke Turenchalk explored the East Palestine Train Derailment case study, and Hannah Dancy (Project Coordinator, NCDP) and Sean Hansen (Staff Associate, NCDP) discussed what it’s like to “do” the work of disaster preparedness.

Stay tuned for more updates. In the meantime, you can learn more about the project at https://disasterexhibit.org and check out our all-encompassing storymap.