Where do Emergency and Safety professionals research and find information and data they require to do their jobs? It’s a disaster. Whereas Law and Medical Libraries provide extensive references and resources to their respective fields of expertise, the specialty fields of emergency service, environmental services and occupational safety & health wander aimlessly through general libraries and small privately owned reference works and services.
Principle Disciplines of Emergency Services
To name a few, all falling within a principal goal. “To reduce the probability of injury, illness, or death & to safeguard life”. It all involves RISK Management in order to live a quality of life the way we do and this is accomplished through response and planning. Planned/Organized Chaos is where we work. Mostly, on a local level, dealing with vehicle accidents, hazardous materials spills/exposures, etc. Then comes the big stuff. September 11th, The California quakes, fire storms of Oakland & San Diego, Hurricane Katrina, Andrew or even the ravaged tornadoes, that have plagued the Midwest and south. These and hundreds of other disasters are marked in history. Each one has a serious lesson to be learned.
In order for all of us to be more efficient and reliable in our attempts to provide emergency and safety services to our communities, states and country, we must have the knowledge at hand to make informed decisions when the need arises. Research Techniques for Emergency & Safety Professionals is the basic tool we must have.
Getting Information & Pulling It All Together: That’s the focus of this work that you may learn how to acquire the proper information and data to enable you to make informed decisions to reduce the probability of injury, illness or death and safeguard life.
Learning how to search, locate find and apply required information is a learned ability. We should all know how to get to the information we need by whatever means available to us. It will help to learn how to pull valued information together to satisfy your research needs, but understand we should not apply Emergency Management & Safety with a, paint by numbers attitude. There may be boiler plate(s) we can use, but be prepared to make marked changes to ensure data and information you find works for your needs.
Information is power. Use it wisely or it can harm you!
This course is based in part on an earlier work by the author to compile and publish a reference directory that would maintain the most comprehensive data reference source for emergency, environmental and safety professionals. The Directory of Safety Standards, Literature & Services (ISBN 0-442-02283-2) was first published by Van Nostrand Reinhold and subsequently by John Wiely & Sons.
It was determined that teaching techniques necessary for Emergency & Safety Professionals to research, acquire and apply information to help make informed decisions was vital. Knowledge of these techniques would greatly increase the effectiveness of any emergency operation or safety program.
Where do Emergency and Safety professionals research and find information and data they require to do their jobs? It’s a disaster. As with the legal and medical professions, emergency and safety professionals are now exposed to a body of knowledge that is so large that it’s impossible for one professional to remain current in all areas of specialty, the body of law, statutes, etc. has grown so large and complex that safety professionals can no longer be all things to all people. Unfortunately, not all who claim expertise possess the experience and competence implied by title or credential alone.
Law and medical libraries provide extensive references and resources to their respective fields of expertise, the specialty fields of emergency services and occupational safety & health wonder aimlessly through general libraries, industry reference works and federal depositories. Many agencies, departments and organizations are seeking compliance with emergency, environmental, and safety & health standards and regulations. Where do you start? How do you find and use all the information necessary, and available to enable one to make informed decisions. Your most ardent hope when you start a basic research task is to find at least one source that answers all your specific research questions. Of course, this goal is seldom if ever met in reality. But the more sources you can locate and become familiar with, that are relevant to your question, the better your chances of identifying the best possible answer. You start with a universe of possibilities, then, narrow your search until you find one or two relevant sources. In turn, those sources, with the assistance of certain cross-reference tools, allow you to rapidly locate many additional relevant data sources.
Even for many seasoned emergency and safety professionals, researching data can become a nightmare. These nightmares are echoed around the country as responsible individuals seek the right information. This work was developed to allow organizations and individuals to get the information they need to make effective emergency and safety decisions. Proper information transfer, knowing what information to look for, where to locate the information, and then how to use and apply it, is critical to a successful emergency operation or safety program. Research Techniques for Emergency & Safety Professionals, is the first major comprehensive research work available for these disciplines. For the purpose of conformity with this work, both Emergency and Safety Professionals may be used interchangeably.
Proper management of such information prepares one for better decision-making as well as management of emergency and safety demands. To reap the rewards from gaining the knowledge of how best to gather, obtain, interpret and apply relevant emergency and safety data is as if finding treasure. It means that you are contributing to the safety of great numbers of people and the preservation of the environment.
It is our hope that this text and associated work will serve to provide emergency and safety personnel with dedicated, comprehensive reference and resource research tools to help them ensure proficiency in their fields.
“A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a tragedy. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives” James Madison, 1822, Arm yourself with knowledge
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