Present: Boksenbaum, Carvalho, DiMichele, Eppich, Kreck, Lessard, Long, O’Connor, Redfearn, St.Jean, Stearn, Warburton, Wodehouse, Wyant

Project Director’s Report:

Donna DiMichele reported that she had given a presentation on the Protecting the Past—RI project at NEDCC’s Advisory Committee meeting on Friday, September 12; at the Library Board of RI meeting on September 15; and at the RI Historical Records Advisory Board on September 3. Donna encouraged everyone to please publicize the project in their local newspapers and in the newsletters of their particular organizations. She will resend the PR template that can be adapted for local use. The project page on the OLIS website is constantly updated and should be checked for records of past meetings, agendas, and links to pertinent disaster readiness and response information.

Project Manager’s Report:

Eileen Warburton reported that she had accompanied Donna DiMichele and Lisa Long to NEDCC on September 12, where Warburton met with Lori Foley, Director of Field Services for NEDCC. Two important points emerged from this meeting:

1) NEDCC is planning to pursue an IMLS grant with conservators from other national regions to produce a version of dPlan that is enriched with in-depth information regarding prevention, response, and recovery pertinent to museum collections. They would apply in February 09 for a starting date of January 10. Expected roll-out would be 2013. This intention—and the pressure of the project schedule—means that the museum information the SC adds to dPlan should be that of basic emergency response followed by information about conservator-specialists and local responders.

2) Foley stressed that in order to complete this planning grant (Protecting the Past—RI) in a timely manner, we needed to allow at least three months of time (January, February, March 09) for the NEDCC programmer to make the Rhode Island specific changes in dPlan. Only after those changes have been programmed and tested (early April 09) will we be able to give training sessions. Due to school and religious holidays and NEDCC’s internal schedules, we will probably need to schedule these training sessions in late April and the first two weeks of May. Foley and Warburton would then be able to produce the final project report in June 2009 and wrap up the project. This schedule puts the Steering Committee under severe time pressure to make all the changes to dPlan by the end of the calendar year (Dec 31, 2008). Warburton emphasized that the most important matter before the Steering Committee today was creating the subcommittees that would craft the changes. Amended Project Milestones are attached to this Report. Warburton also reported that she will give a presentation on Protecting the Past—RI at the national Civic Tourism conference in the Blackstone Valley on October 15.

Subcommittees:

After discussion, the following subcommittees were formed to begin the change process. Absent SC members will need to be assigned to committees.

1) dPlan Overview: Alex Allardt, Ruth Taylor, Lisa Long, and Sarina Wyant will function as a kind of “swat team” to quickly read through the entire dPlan document (excluding all the conservation information embedded in its links), flagging with comments all the places where RI information needs to be added or amended. This group’s recommendations will generate additional subcommittees addressing specific areas. In the meantime, these subcommittees will locate basic information in the following areas:

2) State Conservators List: Linda Eppich, Phil Lessard. Companies to be those that specialize in historic sites and materials. There should be designation of those companies with a master price agreement with the state for such disasters as smoke, water, biological, and chemical damage.

3) Identification of Emergency Relocation Centers: Leslie McDonough, Pat Redfearn, and Kate Wodehouse. These are relocation centers for people, not artifacts.

4) Identification of Museums and Cultural Organizations in RI: Caroline Kreck, Peggy O’Connor. Augmenting existing lists from OLIS and the Archives with institutions, especially museums, that have fallen through the net.

5) RI Emergency Responders: Donna DiMichele and Jim Baker will find the boiler plate list.

Other Information to be Located:

Kevin Carvalho will begin drafting a letter to send to small cultural institutions, outlining the criteria they should consider in assessing risk insurance needs. To begin to create a list of suppliers, Cecilia St. Jean will draft a letter to cultural institutions throughout the state asking who they call in an emergency. Gwenn Stearn will contact Lou Cirillo to ask him to promote the project goals to all Clerks in RI cities and towns. Donna DiMichele will contact Gregor Trinkhaus-Randall, Preservation Specialist at the Massachusetts Board of Library commissioners, who was on the team to develop the original NEDCC dPlan. He is a source of information about materials relocation services and remediation companies in the southern NE regions as well as nationally.

Other Matters:

The SC discussed whether dPlan should include GPS data for all cultural institutions in our revised RI dPlan. Statewide Planning and the 911 group may be able to assist with this. However, if 911 has the data, is it needed for this project?

There was discussion about where the dPlan should be hosted, since NEDCC will not continue to do so. Furthermore, there was discussion regarding making all RI institutions’ dPlans electronically accessible to other sister institutions. Howard Boksenbaum suggested that the SC focus on the urgency of the work of the subcommittees and place these important, but not as pressing, issues in a “parking lot” for later consideration. Linda Eppich spoke about the upcoming NEMA (New England Museum Association) meeting and promised to see if there was any way to get on the schedule to make some sort of project presentation.

Adjournment:

SC members present agreed to hold the next Steering Committee meeting on Wednesday, October 15th, 1-3 pm. Warburton will find and advertise the place of the meeting. Members agreed to adjourn.