Saving Your Collections: A Disaster Planning Workshop
Pre-conference Workshop

Location: Hart Cluett Museum, Troy NY

Time: 1 - 3 PM

About: New York State is at high risk for natural disasters and emergencies. But how do we protect our collections in case of an emergency? And how do we prepare our institutions for when disaster strikes? The Capital New York Alliance for Response, with a voluntary advisory board of area experts, works to build strong partnerships between cultural stewards and first responders in the Capital Region to help ensure the protection of our collections through advocacy, education, networking, and real-time emergency assistance. Capital NYAFR is dedicated to serving libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural organizations across the Capital Region to improve disaster planning, response, and recovery efforts to minimize loss and damage to our historic sites and valued collections.

Presenters:

Samantha Mahoski, Curator/Archivist, Hart Cluett Museum

Over the last almost decade, Samantha Mahoski (she/her) has worked within a variety of information environments and cultural heritage institutions across New York State’s Capital District. This, in turn, has expanded her knowledge and deepened her appreciation of the rich histories and narratives that define, and celebrate, the dynamism of our collective past. Through her work as a trained archivist and curator and grounded by the belief that museums are not neutral spaces, Samantha’s advocation of the aforesaid to be used for the benefit of the public has been her young(ish) career’s central focus. She is currently the Curator and Archivist at the Rensselaer County Historical Society in Downtown Troy, NY, where she directly handles the preservation of a growing collection of over 33,000 items, both paper-based materials and 3-dimensional objects and oversees all aspects of collection development and care.

John Diefederfer, Archivist, NYS Archives

Presentation Format:

• Experiential/Interactive

Session categories:

• Shared the relevance and importance of collections

What to expect:

This workshop will be conducted in four parts: Assessment, Response, Recovery, and Sustaining Recovery. Participants will be provided with tools and resources to build their own disaster plan, learn how to mitigate the risks to their collections and institutions, and build confidence in emergency preparedness and response.