The Learning Resource Center (aka “the library”) at the U.S. Fire Administration has a treasure trove of research tools for disaster scientists and emergency services managers. (More to come, I promise!) I couldn’t resist giving a sneak peek of one of their tools I was able to make immediate use of.
Significant Disasters/Fires/Incidents
In five different topic areas (Earthquakes, Fires, Hurricanes, Terrorist Incidents and ‘Other Disasters‘), links are given to US Fire Administration LRC items on a given topic. For instance, the Hurricanes page lists 11 hurricanes, covering the span of this century, and links to a number of journal articles, proceedings, reports, government documents and books on each individual storm. Many of the journal articles are not indexed elsewhere, or are indexed only in highly specialized databases, so having the citations collected together like this makes searching a breeze.* The topics, while not entirely comprehensive for every US disaster (and certainly not for international ones!), are specific enough to be truly useful.
Check it out, and look for more information on the US Fire Administration library’s resources in a future post.
*(Sorry for the lame hurricane pun. I couldn’t help myself!)