Chapter Twelve: Information (Additional Resources)

PTT-Teller workstation (ca unk)
source
Racunari TIM
by
D.Hristovic

Articles:

A stack of 3-inch floppy disks by Maxell.
(ca 2010)
photograph by
Morn the Gorn

Links:

Lending Library Books (ca 1943)
source
State Library of New South Wales

Videos:

Table of Contents                    Chapter Thirteen: Financial

Chapter Twelve: Information (Additional Articles)

Computer Tapes used for the SDS Sigma 7 computer,
at the UCLA Boelter 3420 lab (ca 2011)
photograph by
Andrew "FastLizard4" Adams

A list of articles, written by me, with an explination

Additional Resources ...                    Chapter Thirteen: Financial

Chapter Twelve: Information

American Family Watching TV (ca 1958)
source
National Archives and Records Administration

Information, we are surrounded by it.

Radio; tv; internet; newspapers; what you see, hear, smell, touch, and taste; and many others. But what happens if it stops. I'm talking about something simple, like an electrical outage.

How will you get your information? What if the emergency lasts longer than three days? Three weeks? Three years?

Remember PACE? For me.

Primary: Electronic Files on my computer

Alternate: A Laptop Computer and Compact Disks (CD) I am switching to an archival brand, when I can find one. A switch to DVD when I buy my next computer.

Contingency: Paper Files and Printed Books

Emergency: Microfiche and doubles of selected books packed for long-term storage.

The Survival Bible
While I was reading another blog, I found a post by Selous Scout at “Something Wicked Comes” about creating "The Survival Bible" for you and your family.

Selous Scout lays out a great method of building a 3-ring binder, or sets of binders, to hold important emergency preparedness information for you and your family.

What is interesting about this idea is that the binder system can be as simple or as in-depth as you want. Preparing for a multigenerational emergency, you will need, oh, 100 binders. Preparing for an earthquake, maybe, 2 binders.

Copy, Copy, Copy
And this leads to the next point. Do you have an inventory of your home and its contents for insurance purposes? Stored at an off-site location such as a trusted friend’s or relative's home, safety deposit box, or lawyer's office?

How about copies of the insurance policies themselves? Contact information for your agent?

How about those (evil, vile, despicable, and useful) credit cards? Do you have copies of the account number, procedures for dealing with a stolen card, and account policies?

Birth certificates, passports, marriage licenses, divorce decrees; water, sewer, electric, gas, oil, and other regular bills; and tax records to name a few more.

Copies of Social Security cards, vehicles titles, and professional certificates to name a few more.

Yes, all possibly stored off-site in a safety deposit box. If you don't like that idea, how about your own fire- proof safe, bolted to the floor, of course.

Now remember your threat analysis. The files you create are specific to you. Don't let the threats that I am or others are preparing for distract you from your preparations.

Of course, as you do research for your Survival Bible, you will read about other people preparing for various emergencies, Peak Oil, Collapse of Society, Race Wars, Nuclear War, Economic Disasters, and many others. If you come across something that you think you need to add to your threat analysis, go ahead and add to your list. Just, make sure you prioritize the new threats on your threat analysis then add any information; you may need to survive that event.

Appendix A: Common Mistakes

The first common mistake, made by most families, is failing to have information for a likely event. Most events are going to be the common disasters such as a house fire, so you and your family need to have an inventory for your possessions, stored with your cache or trusted relative. You will also need duplicates of important documents such as birth certificates, shot records, marriage certificates, child support decrees, driver’s licenses, social security cards, and many others.

If you and your family must evacuate to an emergency shelter, the Red Cross will accept electronic documents from a thumb-drive. To set-up an emergency information thumb-drive, your family will need to scan the documents then convert them to a .pdf. Next, you or someone technically suave will need to load the converted documents onto a thumb-drive. Lastly, the documents are password protected.

Of course, you will need to secure this thumb-drive. Remember, OPSEC.

The next common mistake is being disorganized in your information storage. Yes, it looks scholarly, stacks of books piled on a desk, multiple piles of paper, and numerous unorganized bookmarks on the computer, but disorganization will slow you from accessing your stored information. Plus, if you have to evacuate, do you know which pile to grab?

The last common mistake is depending on electronic storage devices for long-term information, such as compact disks (CDs),  digital versatile disk (DVDs), USB flash drive (thumb drives), personal computers, and personal digital assistant (PDAs). Before I continue, my family and I have prepper-type information on CDs, DVDs, and thumb-drives, but we know during certain events the information stored on these devices will be unavailable. There are a couple reasons for this.

First, electricity must be available to access these devices. Needless to say, without electricity, these devices are useless.

Another reason, the storage media or device may, quickly, become obsolete. Remember, floppy disks that really flopped?

Lastly, including books, these electronic devices and media are delicate.

Appendix B: Other Information

Obtaining Information
My favorite place to get information is the internet. The second place is the local library. The library has magazines, books, and videos on a variety of subjects. Just go to the card catalog, probably a computer now a days, and enter your search query. If that doesn't work, there is a librarian to assist you.

Most local libraries are members of an inter-library loan program. Under the inter-library loan program, the local library is able to borrow a book from another library. The library will be able to get you a copy of a book; they don't have on hand for free or a small fee.

I have used my local library and the inter-library program to read many books that I normally couldn't afford. Once, I find a book that I think I want to own; I check local and national booksellers for used copies. We also have a local library sale every year. I am able to buy books for about 1/10 to 1/100 their original price. One year I was able to buy a set of Encyclopedia Britannica for $20.

Be careful, I have accidentally bought five copies, over the years, of Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. I keep a list, now. For the ambitious, the librarians will be able to help you set up a card catalog for your book collection.

Long-Term Storage of Books
I have two copies of certain books. One copy is kept on a shelf and is used as needed. The other copy is placed into long term storage.

To store these books, I place them in a mylar bag with an oxygen absorber and a moisture absorber. After I seal the bag, I write the title and author of the book on the seal. I then place two or three other sealed books in another bag with an oxygen absorber and more moisture absorbers. This bag is sealed and labeled with titles and authors. I take two to three of these bundles then place the bundles in a heavy-duty trash bag. The trash bag is taped shut and stacked in a metal (preferred method) or wooden (alternative method) box.

Appendix C: The Dan Forrester Project

In the book Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, the character Dan Forrester attempts to save information that might be useful to a society recovering from a catastrophic event.

In the pouring rain, he loads books, double sealed in zip-lock bags, into an old steel septic tank. After finding other survivors of the comet strike, they are able to recover the contents of the tank.

This is a good idea; however, zip-lock bags will leak. Loading the tank during a pouring rain was also a poor idea.

So why did I tell you about a very minor part in a great survival and science fiction book? Because, I would like you to join the "Dan Forrester Project."

The idea is to save books that can be used by you to teach or by others to learn your profession or expertise. If you would like to add more books to the project, please do.

Now, don't go out and buy two new copies of every book you own, that is a waste of money. Just the ones that you would use to teach someone, from the beginning, your area of expertise or books that you feel would need to be saved during a world-wide event, such as a Jewish Torah, Christian Bible, the Muslim Koran, the complete works of William Shakespeare, Louis L’Amour, Danielle Steele, or some other author or poet. 

Additional Articles ...                    Chapter Thirteen: Financial

Chapter Twelve: Information

An assortment of foreign newspapers,
at a Norwegian library (ca 2005)
by
Ranveig

Quickstart:

Go to your local library and apply for a library card, same for your partner, children, and grandchildren. 

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