“Ready — Or Not” Cultural Heritage Disaster Preparedness Project
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Project Overview
California faces an escalating threat from natural disasters, endangering cultural heritage collections and underserved communities. Wildfires, earthquakes, and floods not only jeopardize collections but also worsen socioeconomic disparities. Without proper equipment, funding, or partnerships, many small Californian cultural heritage collections are at risk. The urgency is compounded by climate change’s worsening natural disasters, which can strike quickly and escalate over time.
In response, the California State Library, with funding from the state of California and in partnership with the Northeast Document Conservation Center, developed a major initiative — “Ready — Or Not” — to assist cultural heritage organizations in evaluating risks to their collections and begin taking preparatory or remedial steps. In the first step of this initiative, organizations are encouraged to assess how ready their organization is in the event of a disaster. “Ready — Or Not” preservation consultants from the Northeast Document Conservation Center conduct on-site assessments across California, free of charge, to identify risk mitigation measures and preservation priorities.
Groundwork Grants, developed in partnership with Myriad Consulting & Training, builds upon this first step by allocating essential financial support to address the identified needs, prioritizing institutions that document the experiences of individuals, groups, and communities whose contributions to California’s history and culture have long been underrepresented in mainstream memory institutions. Groundwork Grants will also ultimately produce long-term economic benefits by reducing response and recovery costs. Most importantly, this collaborative effort will help to safeguard California’s cultural heritage, in its most inclusive form, for generations to come.
For more background information on the California State Library’s work to preserve cultural heritage, please visit Protecting California’s Cultural Heritage.
About Ready — Or Not
The California State Library has partnered with the Northeast Document Conservation Center to help local archives, historical societies, libraries, museums, and tribal nations create disaster preparedness plans to protect at-risk art, historically and culturally significant collections, and ensure future public access, especially to collections held by or featuring California’s underserved and underrepresented communities.
Trained preservation consultants conduct free site visits for qualifying California organizations stewarding cultural resources and then deliver a report with their observations. Each report includes recommendations for mitigating risks, taking emergency preparedness actions, and completing a disaster plan, thereby providing each with tools to better protect their collections in an emergency, ensuring that California’s cultural heritage is preserved into the future.
Learn More or Schedule a Free Consultation
California cultural heritage collections interested in a free consultation should contact NEDCC’s consultants at CAready@nedcc.org or by phone at 855-501-3020. Visit the “Ready — Or Not” website for more information.
