IT to Rescue Haiti Heritage

The International Council on Archives has passed on a request to the international community for assistance in preserving the cultural heritage of Haiti. The Statement of Requirements details the immediate need to shore up buildings damaged in the recent earthquake and to remove cultural materials to safety where this is not possible. There is a need for IT staff and equipment to assist in digitising and recording cultural materials. When visiting Samoa to teach information technology for Museum staff, I heard of instances where artefacts were removed to "safety" because of a disaster, but were never seen again. As there were no good records, it was not possible to know what was missing or if it was stolen, or mislaid in a warehouse somewhere. Thus the need for records.

Disaster Management System for Haiti Earthquake

The Sahana Open Source Disaster Management System is being prepared for use in the 2010 Haiti earthquake by a group of volunteers. Relief organisations needing computer support and IT organisations or individuals wishing to offer assistance, can get details at the Haiti Quake 2010 wiki.

Sahana was discussed in: "Emergency response information systems: emerging trends and technologies: Open source software for disaster management", Paul Currion, Chamindra de Silva, Bartel Van de Walle, Communications of the ACM
Volume 50, Number 3 (2007)

It was also mentioned in Sahana was discussed recently in: "Revitalizing computing education through free and open source software for humanity", Ralph Morelli, Allen Tucker, Norman Danner, Trishan R. De Lanerolle, Heidi J. C. Ellis, Ozgur Izmirli, Danny Krizanc, Gary Parker, Communications of the ACM
Volume 52, Number 8 (2009).