CNMI learns how to salvage disaster-hit books, library resources

Paper conservator and instructor from the Center for Pacific Island Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Liane Naauao, demonstrates how to salvage a book damaged by water during the Disaster Preparedness and Recovery Workshop at the Joeten Kiyu Public Library in Susupe. (CHRYSTAL MARINO)

To help libraries, museums and other community organizations preserve or recover documents, files, maps and books in the case of a natural disaster, the Joeten-Kiyu Public Library partnered with the University of Hawaii in Manoa Museum Studies Graduate certificate program to bring a free Disaster Preparedness and Recovery Workshop to Saipan last Wednesday and Thursday.

The two-day workshop that also included risk assessment, emergency planning and response, took place at the JKPL library in Susupe on June 21-22, 2023, drawing a good turnout, with about 20 participants from different organizations across the islands.

The workshop was taught by Liane Naauao, who is a paper conservator and instructor from the Center for Pacific Island Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

“It’s been wonderful to work with the director of the library and their staff,” said Noelle Kahanu, an associate specialist at the University of Hawaii Manoa, American Studies Department, and one of the coordinators of the event. “The intent was to do a salvage workshop…disaster preparedness and salvage. …Perhaps in the future, if someone else is in need they [participants] can pass along and share what they learned from this,” said Kahanu.

Aside from the plane tickets and lodging, which were funded by JKPL, this project is funded by the University of Hawaii’s Center for Pacific Island Studies. “…We were able to bring over a contingent of people from Hawaii, both trainer like Liane, but also some of our Hawaii-based cohort members from the institute, so a total of seven of us travelled from Hawaii, and there’s two from Guam and all of these participants from Saipan.”

Naputi said she is grateful to the team. “I’m very thankful and appreciative for my instructors to be able to come out here to teach us and to share this knowledge with my colleagues and the rest of the community members.”

She hopes to be able to conduct more trainings and cascade the learning from this workshop to others, especially to community members who are interested in preserving rare collections and documents.

Naputi said it wasn’t just learning how to preserve things, but the training had a lot to do with the thought of preserving the islands and families’ legacy, some of which are in documents, certain maps, and books.

“…In the event of another typhoon coming across our way again, we are better prepared and better equipped to save as much as we can in our collections, especially our Pacific books, our rare books, our Pacific collection area.”

Naputi said the UH team also brought disaster kits for the library to help better prepare for natural disasters.

One of the workshop participants, Northern Marianas Humanities Council archive manager Roberto Santos, said, “I was learning a lot about salvaging materials that you might find in any archive, library, museum, record system. …In my field and in the field of library science and record keeping, this is very valuable skill to have and very valuable knowledge. And in the preservation of our people and our legacy and our identity, these documents, records etc. are all evidence and things that record our culture and our history and identity, so preserving it is very important.”

Ray Jr. Deleon Guerrero a computer specialist for the Pacific Room at JKPL, said he learned many new things when it comes to preserving books and documentation.

Rommell Buenaflor, a multi-media specialist for the Diocese of Chalan Kanoa also noted that their private library had undergone serious damage during the past typhoons, and they had to throw out so many books, so he found the workshop valuable.