Crisis Information Management: Communication and Technologies

Citation

Keary, M. (2012), "Crisis Information Management: Communication and Technologies", Online Information Review, Vol. 36 No. 5, pp. 767-768. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684521211276028

The management of information in a crisis calls for key skills and expertise and poses many challenges, which the collected papers in this book describe. ICT has changed the managing of information in crisis preparedness, warning, impact and response, and insights into current research and practice provide some answers in these chapters.

The crisis of wars seems to be a constant these days, and Semaan uses the experiences of civilians in the Israel‐Lebanon War and the Gulf War in Iraq to demonstrate how technology can enable resilience during war, and to describe how ICT was used to reconstruct, modify and construct new patterns of actions.

Twitter is normally considered to be a chatty social media tool, but is put to more practical uses in times of crisis. Heverin and Zach show how law enforcement agencies in large US cities disseminate crime and incident‐related information, whilst Starbird describes its use in promoting structured data for citizen communications during disaster response. In both cases Twitter has proved to be invaluable for providing accurate, up‐to‐the minute information for communication directly to the public.

Three different scenarios relating to disaster and mass emergency events are described. Lin uses ICT to create new ways to capture and preserve the heritage of historic events based on the collective memory of citizens involved in the Bhopal gas leak and Hurricane Katrina. Hagar describes the foot‐and‐mouth outbreak in Cumbria and how multiple information needs of the farming community were dealt with. Pentalk, an online social network based on telephone and local radio, provided the trustworthy information that was required. Gannon looks at it from the corporate angle, and the role of Ericsson, a global provider of telecommunications equipment and services, working in partnership with the UN to support disaster and emergency response initiatives, particularly where aid agencies are unable to respond effectively.

Basic tools are still very relevant, and Bergstrand and Landgren discuss possibilities for current and future information environments, and how key information sources such as verbal and visual information can be captured, stored and used. Birowo discusses the role of community radio in emergency situations caused by natural disasters in Indonesia. Libraries also have an important part to play. Brobst identifies new public library roles during a Florida hurricane, and employs successful technology solutions and communications programmes to assist local communities prepare for and recover from the hurricane. Braunstein and others examine the role of academic librarians from Louisiana State University, how they applied their special capacity for information organisation and management by bringing together agencies and institutions to coordinate a recovery plan.

These post‐crisis reports describe information and communication lessons learned from disasters where there are myriad challenges to be overcome. They illustrate the importance of choosing the right technology tools to avoid information overload, lack of information, its co‐ordination and integration, and choosing the appropriate channel for disseminating the information.