Written by Jeremiah Coca

On February 3, Dr. Marcia A. Mardis led PLAN Jam, a workshop designed to empower public library professionals to enhance their disaster preparedness and community engagement strategies during and outside of natural disasters.

Hosted by the School of Information (iSchool), the College of Communication and Information (CCI), Wakulla Public Library, and Panhandle Library Access Network, this event brought together emergency operations officials, library leaders, and researchers to focus on revising public library disaster plans.

The goal of the workshop was to create actionable frameworks for libraries to serve as community resiliency hubs, master the essentials of local government collaboration, and leverage Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to effectively map and address the needs of vulnerable communities.

The 23 participants from all over Florida learned to critically assess and update their existing disaster plans, ensuring the plans were comprehensive and adaptable to the unique needs of their communities.

This event brought together work completed through four federal grant projects–2 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and 2 from the National Science Foundation. It provided the iSchool the opportunity to collaborate with researchers from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, College of Medicine, College of Social Work, and Department of Geography, demonstrating the College’s capacity to lead multidisciplinary research on a priority campus research topic.

To learn more about the ongoing work at the iSchool, please visit ischool.cci.fsu.edu.