Evacuation of entire collections is a rare and extraordinary event, and one that must be planned with great precision well before a direct threat and the actual transportation of materials. This planning involves identifying a place of refuge for the collection, the form and availability of the transportation to be used to move the collection, and the main and alternative routes to take.

Also important to consider is proactively storing, at a safe, remote location, materials in the collection that are already held in duplicate:

• Copies of microfilm. When microfilm is created and processed according to international standards, three generations of film must be produced: a camera or archival negative, a print master negative, and a positive use copy. The camera negative should always be stored in good environmental conditions at a secure location remote from the other generations of film.

• Duplicate copies of other materials. Other duplicates should also be stored remotely as a matter of routine. When national libraries receive multiple copies of books through copyright arrangements, for example, it seems sensible not to keep all the copies in one place.

• Theses and dissertations. For degree-awarding academic institutions that require multiple copies of theses and dissertations, it is equally sensible to keep the copies in different places.

• Electronic records. As archives and libraries increasingly produce collection records in electronic formats, duplicates of the data must be produced and stored in other locations to ensure the survival of the records.

• Common collections. A group of archives or libraries could agree to remotely store portions of their collections that they hold in common.