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Biodiversity Information Science and Standards : Conference Abstract
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Anthony Wright
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Corresponding author: Anthony Wright (awright@canterburymuseum.com)
Received: 13 Jul 2018 | Published: 17 Jul 2018
© 2018 Anthony Wright
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Wright A (2018) Collections in an Uncertain World: The Impact of Earthquakes on Canterbury Museum. Biodiversity Information Science and Standards 2: e28364. https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.2.28364
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Abstract
Since 2010, the Canterbury region on the eastern coast of New Zealand’s South Island has experienced more than 14,000 earthquakes. This presentation begins by considering the immediate impact of these seismic events on Canterbury Museum; how were its buildings, its collections, its team and its communities affected? Within the first weeks and months, what processes were put in place to manage the collections and to what extent was the Museum’s team able to undertake work to ensure the institution remained relevant during a national disaster? With a distance of almost eight years since the first major earthquake, this presentation reflects on some of the lessons learnt about the realities of planning for, and responding to, disaster and the impact of a continuing series of earthquakes on the concept of ‘business as usual’.
Keywords
disaster planning, earthquakes, collections, community, disaster recovery
Presenting author
Anthony Wright, Director, Canterbury Museum
Presented at
SPNHC-TDWG 2018