When the Heritage Emergency National Task Force (HENTF) –a group of federal agencies and nonprofits dedicated to protecting cultural heritage in the face of emergencies and disasters, gathered at the Smithsonian Institution Building to debrief about their activities over the past year, the University of Texas at Austin iSchool’s name came up.
Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation’s Emergency Programs Coordinator, Jessica Unger, presented the various projects undertaken in 2017 that met one of HENTF's objectives –coordinating the collection and sharing of incident-specific information. Unger lauded the University of Texas at Austin, School of Information students for developing an outreach project for cultural institutions affected by Hurricane Harvey.
Twelve iSchool students designed a system, set up and managed a phone bank, and generated procedures for calling over 300 institutions. They tracked the damaged information gathered by contacting almost every cultural institution in the affected area. Three other iSchool student volunteers assisted with social media monitoring in the aftermath of the hurricane.
Texas iSchool adjunct faculty member and coordinator of National Heritage Responders (NHR) Rebecca Elder managed the outreach effort, while Texas iSchool Senior Lecturer Karen Pavelka advised the student volunteers when necessary.
“This project was my first introduction to archives and preservation at UT, and I was thrilled to have had the opportunity to work alongside such a collaborative, service-minded group,” noted iSchool student volunteer Hannah Hopkins.
The project was so successful upon completion that iSchool students turned it into a "how-to" guide so that the University of Florida students could conduct a similar outreach campaign following Hurricane Irma. The resourceful and tech-savvy approach developed by the iSchool students meant that representatives from HENTF could identify and meet the needs of affected cultural institutions in Florida that much faster in the hurricane’s aftermath.
“In the future, I hope that this low-cost, high-impact model can be useful for other organizations seeking actionable ways to contribute to disaster relief,” said Hopkins.
The iSchool student volunteers include Selena Aleman, Ginny Barnes, Yeseul Monica Cho, Carrie Cruce, Yifan Gong, Hannah Hopkins, Nikki Koehlert, Irene Lule, Abbie Norris, Kate Orazem, Molly Roy, Kyle Swartzlender, Zihan Yang, and Gina Watts.