About the Collection
First established by Disaster Research Center co-founder Enrico Quarantelli, the E. L. Quarantelli Resource Collection is the world’s premier collection of disaster-related material which includes documents and publications not readily available elsewhere, and acquisition priorities include the collection of rare or otherwise unavailable items and documents, with a particular emphasis on the social and behavioral science aspects of disasters. The Center also maintains its own book, monograph, and report series.

Our Location and Hours

Centrally located on the University of Delaware’s main campus in Newark, ​​​​the E.L. Quarantelli Resource Collection is located at the Disaster Research Center who is a member of UD’s vibrant network of research institutes and centers that aid in advancing research and discovery at UD. The DRC is housed at 166 Graham Hall, 111 Academy Street and is easily accessible.

​​​​​The E.L. Quarantelli Resource Collection is open to all researchers, by appointment only.

Collection Hours:
Monday- 9:00am-4:00pm
Tuesday- 9:00am-4:00pm
Wednesday- 9:00am-4:00pm
Thursday- 9:00am-4:00pm

For general inquiries related to the Collection or to schedule a visit, please email elq-resource@udel.edu.

Reading Room Update

The E.L. Quarantelli Resource Collection Reading Room is currently open to visitors by appointment only.

​​​​​The E.L. Quarantelli Resource Collection at the Disaster Research Center is open to all researchers. For general inquiries related to the Collection or to schedule a visit, please email elq-resource@udel.edu.

Research staff are also available for virtual reference inquiries Monday – Friday, 9:00am – 4:00pm at elq-resource@udel.edu.

Search our collection and view our online holdings on our Research Tools page.

E.L. Quarantelli Resource Collection Staff and Research Fellows

VALERIE MARLOWE, Assistant Director of Archives and Collections at the Disaster Research Center

CORNELIA POSCH, Research Assistant, E.L. Quarantelli Resource Collection

MELISSA SHUTZ, Record Coordinator, E.L. Quarantelli Resource Collection

Matthew Van is a Doctoral student at the University of Delaware, and hails from Orange County, California. Matthew comes to UD from the California State University, Long Beach Masters in Emergency Services Administration program. His background includes biology, public affairs, and medical sciences. Some of the research topics he has previously explored involve the effects of COVID-19 on social safety net organizations, and variances in public health pandemic policies across different countries. Matthew is currently assessing mapping tools for use in the COVID Collections Project.

Justin Jacoby Smith is a Masters student in the Disaster Science and Management program. After early years as a student organizer, Justin earned a Bachelor’s degree in poetry, and later came into contact with the notion of mutual aid via the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011. Soon after, Occupy Sandy solidified a research interest in social solidarity in disaster, and in understanding the political economy of the disaster setting. After a decade of political organizing and communal living with the Love+Solidarity Collective, his research interests include post-disaster mutual aid, social movements, and group dynamics under pressure.

Neisha Maharaj is a Food Science major at the University of Delaware, and a Research Assistant in the E.L. Quarantelli Resource Collection. In addition to her food science expertise, Neisha has a professional background in logistics and manufacturing. Neisha is currently working to evaluate and update the Collection’s holdings on foodborne illnesses and food security in the post-disaster context.

Yajaira Ayala is a Doctoral Fellow at the University of Delaware, and earned her Master’s degree in Disaster Studies from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. During this time she worked at the Department of Health and Biomedical Sciences researching mechanisms to address health and social disparities in vulnerable populations of the US-Mexico border. Yajaira is currently compiling an annotated bibliography for researchers interested in exploring the concept of disaster recovery in Latin America and the Spanish-language literature.

Eileen Young is a PhD Candidate at the University of Delaware, and is currently engaged in research using agent-based modeling of social factors in evacuation from fire. Her research interests are in collective behavior, resilience in vulnerable populations, and the evolving role of computing and big data in social science. Eileen currently works on data management for the COVID Collections Project.

Emergency Planning Resources for Cultural Organizations

While thinking of the big items like writing an Emergency Plan or building a Regional Network might feel overwhelming, the key take-away is that Any action- no matter how small- is better than no action!

The Challenge!

Below is a list of relatively low-key activities that anyone interested in improving preparedness at their institution can accomplish! Choose one and let us know how it went!

If there is an Emergency Plan, find it, read it, and update it.

Make a list of other cultural institutions in the area. Reach out to one of them to talk about what mutual aid could look like.

Schedule a regular brown bag lunch with staff outside of your working area to learn about their protocols and plans for emergencies and exchange ideas.

Find a couple of people in the institution who are interested and start an Emergency Team.

Do a walk-through and identify a risk with an easy fix. Get it done – this is something to show when in negotiations over that new budget line for the next preparedness activity.

If the institution is already part of a mutual aid network, make sure everyone’s contact information is up to date. 

The most important thing to do is to start the conversation!

Resources as guidance for your own action (all accessed 15 November 2022)

Resources as guidance for your own action (all accessed 15 November 2022)

    International examples of organizations engaging in preparedness and response (all accessed 15 November 2022)
    Downloadable Graphic: You Don't Have to Hate Your Job to Want a Union

    Collection Spotlight
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    COVID Collections Project Roundtable

    During the spring of 2020, as COVID-19 began to dominate the global agenda, museums, libraries, and archives around the world announced efforts to document human experiences of illness, isolation, economic downturn, fear, adaptation, and solidarity. These efforts ranged widely in scale and methods, from local historical societies seeking personal reflections to large scale, federally-funded oral history projects. 

    During the spring of 2020, as COVID-19 began to dominate the global agenda, museums, libraries, and archives around the world announced efforts to document human experiences of illness, isolation, economic downturn, fear, adaptation, and solidarity. These efforts ranged widely in scale and methods, from local historical societies seeking personal reflections to large scale, federally-funded oral history projects. 

    This panel discussion will feature representatives from three documentation projects: A Journal of the Plague Year, a curatorial consortium of archival collections that reflect localized and thematic collecting across the U.S. and the world; Lothian Lockdown: The Lothian Diary Project, comprising individual video/audio diaries created by residents of the Lothian region of Scotland; and Signs of the Times: Documenting Covid-19 Signs in Southern Maine, a collection of crowd-sourced photographs of signs and messages created in response to the pandemic.

    The Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage (IICAH) Archive

    May 16, 2018 – The E.L. Quarantelli Resource Collection is pleased to announce the arrival of The Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage (IICAH) Archive,
    developed in partnership with the University of Delaware’s Art
    Conservation Department through the work of Art Conservation student
    Taylor Pearlstein. A cross-section of resources is featured on the Iraqi Institute Archive page.

    z

    This Is Chance! The Shaking of an All-American City, A Voice That Held It Together

    Jon Mooallem, Random House

    Throughout 2017, author Jon Mooallem spent extensive time on-site at the E.L. Quarantelli Resource Collection researching 

    Featured in the New York Times | Opinion: “This Is How You Live When the World Falls Apart” The Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 surprised everyone by showing that natural disasters can bring out more kindness than selfishness.

    From the publisher: “In the spring of 1964, Anchorage, Alaska, was a modern-day frontier town yearning to be a metropolis—the largest, proudest city in a state that was still brand-new. But just before sundown on Good Friday, the community was jolted by the most powerful earthquake in American history, a catastrophic 9.2 on the Richter Scale. For four and a half minutes, the ground lurched and rolled. Streets cracked open and swallowed buildings whole. And once the shaking stopped, night fell and Anchorage went dark. The city was in disarray and sealed off from the outside world.

    Slowly, people switched on their transistor radios and heard a familiar woman’s voice explaining what had just happened and what to do next. Genie Chance was a part-time radio reporter and working mother who would play an unlikely role in the wake of the disaster, helping to put her fractured community back together. Her tireless broadcasts over the next three days would transform her into a legendary figure in Alaska and bring her fame worldwide—but only briefly. That Easter weekend in Anchorage, Genie and a cast of endearingly eccentric characters—from a mountaineering psychologist to the local community theater group staging Our Town—were thrown into a jumbled world they could not recognize. Together, they would make a home in it again.”

    Research Tools

    RESOURCES AVAILABLE ONLINE

    Master Publication List

    A complete list of all publications produced by DRC personnel, 1963 – Present.

    University of Delaware Online Repository

    The University of Delaware’s UDSpace provides access to the Disaster Research Center’s research in digital form, including access to over 700 DRC preliminary papers, reports, and other DRC documents.

    EMForum.org Webinar Archives

    From 1997 to 2014, the Emergency Information Infrastructure Project (EIIP) hosted a continuing series of real-time, interactive presentations on a wide variety of emergency management-related topics, first via text chat and subsequently by the EMForum.org Webinar for the purpose of providing the opportunity for continuing education and professional exchange.

    Over the course of its existence, leaders in all phases of emergency management – preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation – volunteered their time to share their expertise and experience with their colleagues and respond to their questions. This exchange was captured, first through text transcripts, and later, the addition of audio and video recordings, amassing a large archive that continues to remain relevant to the issues of the day.

    PARTNERSHIPS AND RESOURCES

    The COVID Collections Project

    The COVID Collection Project is a collaboration among the Initiative for Critical Disaster Studies (NYU Gallatin), the Archives and Public History Program (NYU Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), and the E.L. Quarantelli Resource Collection at the University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center.

    For more information, and to learn more, visit: https://wp.nyu.edu/disasters/covid-collections-project/

    DesignSafe Data Depot and Recon Portal

    ​The Data Depot is the data repository for DesignSafe. The web interface to the Data Depot allows you to browse, upload, download, share, curate and publish data stored within the repository. You are encouraged to use the Data Depot not only for curation and publication of research results, but as a working “scratch” area for any of your own data and work in progress. Scientific applications in the Workspace can access your Data Depot files, enabling data analysis directly in the DesignSafe portal that minimizes the need to transfer data to your laptop. 

    National Security Archive

    Founded in 1985 by journalists and scholars to check rising government secrecy, the National Security Archive combines a unique range of functions: investigative journalism center, research institute on international affairs, library and archive of declassified U.S. documents (“the world’s largest nongovernmental collection” according to the Los Angeles Times), leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, public interest law firm defending and expanding public access to government information, global advocate of open government, and indexer and publisher of former secrets.

    National Emergency Training Center (NETC) Library

    Founded in 1985 by journalists and scholars to check rising government secrecy, the National Security Archive combines a unique range of functions: investigative journalism center, research institute on international affairs, library and archive of declassified U.S. documents (“the world’s largest nongovernmental collection” according to the Los Angeles Times), leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, public interest law firm defending and expanding public access to government information, global advocate of open government, and indexer and publisher of former secrets.

    National Emergency Training Center (NETC) Library

    ​The National Emergency Training Center (NETC) Library is your primary information resource for fire, emergency management, and other all-hazards subjects. 

    Operated by the U.S. Fire Administration, the NETC library supports National Fire Academy and Emergency Management Institute instructional and research programs by providing relevant collections, tools for resource discovery, and classroom-based and individual research assistance.

    Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC)

    The Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC) is a graduate-level program jointly sponsored by the University of Delaware and Winterthur Museum. It is a three-year course leading to a Master of Science in Art Conservation. The curriculum is designed to educate and train conservation professionals to carry out the examination, analysis, stabilization and treatment of art and artifacts, speak to general principles of collection care, and have a broad academic background in science and the humanities.

    University of Delaware’s Library, Museums, and Press

    ​​The Morris Library is home to a number of disaster-related holdings and maintains subscriptions to numerous academic journals. The E.L. Quarantelli Resource Collection specializes in the collection of rare and otherwise inaccessible disaster-related materials. For items of general interest, students at the University of Delaware are encouraged to search the collections of Morris Library.

    Materials Request Form

    Looking for something and don’t see it in our collection? Have a suggestion for a new acquisition?
    Complete the form below and your request will be reviewed by a Resource Collection staff member within 24 hours.

    12 + 6 =

    Pat Young Award for
    Most Innovative Use of the E.L. Quarantelli Collection
    Pat Young Award
    ABOVE: Pat Young with our three recent visiting scholars, from Australia, China, and Japan. June 13, 2018.
    ​In honor and appreciation of her years of dedication to the field, the Disaster Research Center is pleased to announce the establishment of the Pat Young Award for Most Innovative Use of the E.L. Quarantelli Collection.

    Established for an initial term of 10 years, each year one award of $100 will be given to an individual who has used the E.L. Quarantelli collection in a way that demonstrates creativity, advancement to their discipline, or advancement to practice and community well-being.

    Awards will be given based on work conducted or newly completed in the calendar year. In some special circumstances, it may also be awarded for long-term and sustained use. To nominate someone for consideration, please email elq-resource@udel.edu.

    This award is funded by a generous donation, but gifts in support of this award or the E.L. Quarantelli collection in honor of Pat Young are welcomed.