Bay Area Mutual Aid Network

Background: The Bay Area Mutual Aid Network is an organization dedicated to encouraging and

supporting disaster preparedness and response among its member libraries, archives, and museums.

Membership includes those libraries that originally joined the Disaster Response Mutual Aid Pact, an

outgrowth of the Bay Area Preservation Network (BAPNet) in 1998. Their 5-year mutual aid contracts

expired in 2003 and BAPNet no longer exists. Because the California State Library and the California

Preservation Program (CPP) were committed to facilitating disaster recovery plans in as many California

libraries, archives, and cultural heritage institutions as possible, the CPP requested local representative,

Mary Morganti, to reactivate and expand the network. In January 2006, the mutual aid pact was

reinstituted and renamed the Bay Area Mutual Aid Network (BAMAN). With the elimination of support

from the California State Library in 2019, BAMAN is no longer able to hold regular meetings or organize

local emergency planning workshops. The CSL currently contracts with the Northeast Document

Conservation Center (NEDCC) to provide some of the services that the CPP, which organized our

regional networks, used to develop and oversee.

BAMAN goals are:

1) to facilitate a network of people willing to help each other in times of local

disaster with advice, support or actual recovery assistance;

2) to ensure the continuing viability of the Network; and

3) to maintain and expand multiple locations of disaster response supplies.

Benefits: BAMAN sends out occasional News Notes by email to all contacts at our member institutions

to keep everyone informed of disaster planning opportunities. We strive to maintain & distribute a current

membership & contacts list of and for our 45+ Bay Area archives, libraries & museums.

BAMAN maintains 3 caches of disaster recovery supplies: a large cargo container housed on the campus

of Northeastern University (formerly Mills College) in Oakland, and similar supplies stored at the San

Francisco Department of Emergency Management on Turk Street and at History Park in San Jose. For

our SF and SJ supplies, we purchased & stocked rolling storage bins so, in an emergency, BAMAN

members can sign out a bin, grab it & go: San Francisco has 4 bins and San Jose has 1 bin. We regularly

share an updated contacts list with all BAMAN members, who may access these supplies on an as-needs

basis. All supplies taken must be replaced within 30 days.

See access instructions & photos for San Francisco / Oakland / San Jose, plus lists of supplies.

Contents of another large container owned by NARA, the National Archives and Records Administration

in San Bruno, may also be made available to BAMAN members, by special request in an emergency.

BAMAN is open to and encourages new members to expand our network and increase the number of

institutions with access to disaster response supplies. If you are interested in membership in BAMAN,

See our list of member institutions! For urgent concerns or questions about your existing institutional

membership in BAMAN, you may also contact one of us directly:

Mary Morganti, BAMAN Coordinator, mlmorganti@aol.com

Barbara Rominski, BAMAN Co-coordinator, brominski@sfopera.com

Justin Edgar, BAMAN Communications Coordinator, edgarj@uclawsf.edu