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Disaster planning in libraries is not a new phenomenon; the period in the United States in the mid to late 1980´s was one of awareness with libraries focusing on preservation of their collections. Cooperation plays a fundamental role in libraries where individual organizations must interact for the overall system to function effectively. This paper will focus on the development of a cooperative plan and a common recovery strategy for several of the leading research libraries of New York. The eleven libraries that form the Comprehensive Research Libraries of New York are: Columbia University, Cornell University, University of Rochester, Syracuse University, the New York Public Library, New York University, the New York State Library, State University of New York (SUNY) Albany, SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Baffalo and SUNY Stony Brook. While every library in the group has detailed and comprehensive disaster recovery plans, there has not been a wholly concerted effort towards a cooperative approach. Yet the events of September 11, 2001 in New York City demonstrated that catastrophic occurrences are often beyond the resources of any one institution.

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Ms. Beverley Lashley is presently the Acting Head of the Science Branch Library, UWI Mona Campus, Jamaica. Within two years of joining the staff at the UWI Library in 1997 she was asked to coordinate the Library Project Caribbean Disaster Information Network (CARDIN).

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