أدلة إدارة الطوارئ والكوارث بالمؤسسات الأرشيفية للوصول إلى التراث الوثائقي المستدام: دراسة تحليلية

Emergencies and disasters whether, natural or man-made, are among the greatest challenges facing societies and countries, as they often lead to significant losses that may be difficult to overcome if not handled effectively. Accordingly, most institutions across various disciplines have adopted tools tailored to their specific contexts to manage emergencies and disasters. Effective management in this domain relies on the development of flexible and adaptable tools suitable for diverse situations and conditions. Given that archives of all types are essential institutions within the state, serving as repositories for a nation’s memory, it is imperative that they utilize such tools to preserve their valuable holdings from various risks. Consequently, emergency and disaster management in these institutions is of utmost importance to protect documentary heritage from damage or loss, in pursuit of what is known as sustainable documentary heritage. This concept refers to ensuring long-term accessibility to documentary materials—an objective that most archival institutions strive to achieve by implementing all necessary measures for preservation. In developed countries, archival institutions have established clear and up-to-date guidelines to enable effective emergency and disaster management, aiming to safeguard documentary heritage and ensure its continuity for future generations. This research paper seeks to analyze such guidelines and assess their impact on emergency and disaster management policies across archival institutions. It employs a survey-based methodology, collecting data from emergency and disaster management manuals and guidelines in archival institutions worldwide, with the objective of identifying the most significant practices followed in archival disaster preparedness and response. The study aims to offer a set of adapted guidelines for Arab archivists to support their efforts in managing emergencies and disasters within their own institutions and to contribute to achieving sustainable access to documentary heritage—especially given the current political turmoil in the Arab world, which has led to the near-total loss of substantial portions of Arab documentary heritage.