Tuesday 21 April 2015

On the 11 May, the Australian Emergency Management Library will be packed up to start its new life in Canberra, its new home will be in the  Lionel Murphy Library at the Attorney-General's Department.

The library service will continue as usual, so members will still be able to request items and ask reference questions. The only difference is the address:

Lionel Murphy Library
3-5 National Circuit
BARTON ACT 2600

Library members should now be aware of MyAthens, there was some confusion over the first email, but the reason for the UK email address is that the supplier is based in the UK.  The link is safe to open and login details are included in the email.  If you are having issues with your logins or want to update your details, please contact the library em.library@ag.gov.au

Please have a look at this new service, along with the Web Discovery layer, you will be able to access all of the databases, journals and ebooks to which the library subscribe using a single login, but is only available to our Australian members. If the current statisitcs are anything to go by, it looks like many of you have already taken up the challenge.

We have also been busy uploading the library records to Libraries Australia, so the collection can be accessed through Trove allowing other libraries to request items on behalf of their members.

As the library is going through significant changes, please bear with us, especially during the first couple weeks of May, and we look forward to continued support from our members as we make this transition.



Wednesday 7 January 2015

The library will be conducting a stocktake of the collection in the first week of March in preparation for the transition to Canberra at the end of April.  If you have any books out on loan, can you please return them.


In  response to Scot Phelp's comment suggesting his top 5 graduate-level disaster science books, here is the list and all of the titles are avaliable to be borrowed by library members.



Facing the Unexpected, 2001, by Kathleen J.Tierney, Michael K. Lindell and Ronald W. Perry. This book presents the wealth of information derived from disasters around the world over the past 25 years. The authors explore how these findings can improve disaster programs, identify remaining research needs, and discuss disaster within the broader context of sustainable development.



 Hurricane Andrew: ethnicity, gender and sociology of disasters, 1997, edited by Walter Gillis Peacock, Hugh Gladwin and Betty Hearn Morrow. This book explores how social, economic and political factors set the stage for Hurricane Andrew by influencing who was prepared, who was hit the hardest, and who was most likely to recover. Employing unique research data the authors analyze the consequences of conflict and competition on disaster preparation, response and recovery, especially where associated with race, ethnicity and gender.





Mission improbable: using fantasy documents to tame disaster, 1999, by Lee Clarke. What happens when we must plan for massive disaster but have no experience, no clue about how to go about it? Mission Improbable enters the world of managers and experts who think they can rebuild societies after nuclear war, who think they can evacuate huge numbers of people after nuclear meltdowns, and who think they can cleanup huge oil spills. It is a world of whimsy and fantasy, a world where people have to think they can control the uncontrollable.



Resilience engineering in practice, 2011, edited by Erik Hollnagel, Jean Paries,David Woods and John Wreathall.  Resilience engineering has since 2004 attracted widespread interest from industry as well as academia. Practitioners from various fields, such as aviation and air traffic management, patient safety, off-shore exploration and production, have quickly realised the potential of resilience engineering and have became early adopters.
 
http://www.amazon.com/Key-Readings-Crisis-Management-Structures/dp/0415315212

Key readings in crisis management: systems and structures for prevention and recovery, 2006, edited by Denis Smith and Dominic Elliott. One of the first books of its kind in the subject area, this groundbreaking text brings together seminal papers in the area of crisis management and organizational theory. Covering this important field from both a theoretical and practical perspective, it features key readings from Karl Weick, Charles Perrow and many other luminaries of the field.