The plan must identify priorities for salvage among the institution's collections. It may be a relatively simple task in a small circulating library where most of the materials are fairly new and easy to find. It is a very complex problem for a large research library with many old or otherwise hard-to-find titles. Most institutions fall somewhere in between; all libraries, historical societies and archives have some irreplaceable collections.

In addition to its importance to the library's collecting policy, the nature of an item must be considered in establishing order for salvage. For instance, when books printed on coated paper; get wet, their pages will fuse together if the closed books are allowed to air dry. This is called "blocking" and is not reversible. So if a library has a collection of such books and this collection is one of its important holdings, then these books will be among the first to be salvaged. Most types of photographic materials cannot survive prolonged soaking (see pp. 18 and 63). Highest priority for all institutions is the catalog, in whatever form. If materials are lost in a disaster, collections records will be invaluable. Indicate the location of all high priority holdings on the floor plans made during the building survey.

List the collections in order of their priority and indicate the location of each. Note special recovery considerations, if any, next to each, and put this information on a page titled "Collection Priorities" immediately following the names of the recovery team.