Survival Library Contents

Why have a survival library? Because any of the many threats that can take down the power grid take the internet down with it. Several of them could take down satellite internet access too. How dependent are you on internet access for information?

85% of Americans respond that they use the internet daily. 3 in 10 are online constantly. (Atske, 2021) If your reply is, “Not very.” You probably already have a survival library or are in the small minority of people who do not use the internet … or more likely … don’t realize that they use the internet. If you have a social security number and a heartbeat, at the very least, the internet is getting used on your behalf.

When Gen Xers were kids, Al Gore had not created the internet yet, so we went to the library to check out paper books that were tracked using a paper filing system. Everybody learned the Dewey Decimal System in school. It was all very archaic and time consuming but you didn’t need to charge a device to read a book, and you didn’t have to worry about your library disappearing because Amazon arbitrarily changes a policy, cyberwarfare, massive EMP event, kinetic attack on infrastructure, squirrel electrocutes itself in the wrong spot, grandpa Biden misses his nap and mistakes the nuclear football for a board game, dead hand system glitch, any of a half a dozen madmen detonates a nuclear weapon in space or whatever else happens. <Insert Black Swan here.>

The Paper Library

Having a paper library is a failsafe. The downside for most folks is that books take up space and require bookshelves. They are also heavy, so you can only take so much written material with you, which brings us to the portable portion of the paper library.

Packable Paper Survival Library

Anything that is going in your pack needs to be small, light, and necessary. Any books should be pocket versions or field guides. Stick to lifesaving information that is hard to remember:

• A Comprehensive Guide to Wilderness & Travel Medicine, Eric A. Weiss, M.D. – A solid pocket-sized first aid guide.
• The SAS Survival Guide, John Wiseman – One of the better pocket-sized survival guides.
• Water Treatment Cheat Sheet – This is a document I created that with instructions on how to treat water with various different chemicals, make bleach stock from pool shock, and so on.
• Pocket Edible Plant Reference – I am in the Rockies, so I keep a copy of Edible Survival Plants of the Rocky Mountains by Jason Schwartz of Rocky Mountain Bushcraft in my Go Bag. It is a water-resistant foldout reference for the most common edible and medicinal plants in my area with color photos, uses, and harvesting and preparation tips.
• The Pocket Ref, Thomas J. Glover – A pocket-sized reference that contains all sorts of reference information on weights and measures, conversions, calendars, telling time, and things that would be important in a TEOTWAWKI event, that you may not have thought of, but will need if you survive long enough to begin rebuilding.
• National Geographic, USFS, USGS Topo Maps – Detailed maps of around 1:24,000 scale for foot travel in wilderness and rural areas and maps of the greater area at around 1:63,360K for planning.
• City Maps – Detailed city maps.
• Pocket Phone Directory – If you will be surviving in a city, this one could be worth its weight in gold.
• Comms Cheat Sheet – This is a paper copy of information from the repeater directory for nearby repeaters, comms plans for local government and VOADs, a copy of the Wilderness Radio Communications Protocol, times and frequencies to listen for others, and so on.
• Travel/Safety Pointee-Talkee, Kwikpoint – A wallet-size graphic pointee-talkee.
• Pocket Sized Scriptures, Prayer Books – For people of faith, such volumes can be a great consolation and source of strength, directly affecting the will to survive, which should not be ignored.
• Important Documents Pouch – A fire-resistant pouch containing, contacts, ID, current photos of loved ones, and important papers.

Portable Paper Library

This library is the Packable Paper Library plus of few more books kept in the vehicle. Any volumes left out of your pack to save weight from the packable library can go in here.

• Auto Repair Manual for Vehicle Model – Keep one in every vehicle.
• Atlas & Gazetteer, Topo Maps of the Entire State, DeLorme Mapping – Text
• Road Atlas, Adventure Ed., National Geographic – Road Atlas of USA, Canada and Mexico with added information and more detailed maps of city centers, popular national parks, etc.
• Where There Is No Doctor, David Werner – While some of the information is somewhat dated, much of it is more applicable to healthcare in an austere setting than more modern sources. Any disruption that takes down the grid also takes down municipal water treatment plants, simultaneously overwhelming and paralyzing hospitals, slowing resupply and sending them back in time. This book can help prepare the survivalist for dealing with such a situation.
• Foraging the Rocky Mountains, Liz Brown Morgan – This one is obviously location dependent. Choose guides for your own biome.

Large Paper Library

My best tip for building a paper library inexpensively is to make frequent trips to second-hand stores to pick over the book sections. I can’t possibly list all of the best books, as my paper survival library has grown into the thousands of volumes, but here are some highlights:

• AF Handbook 10-644 SERE Operations, Dept of the Air Force – None of the other SERE manuals I have read got into as much detail as this one.
• Physician’s Desk Reference – These can be expensive. If you can’t afford a current one, buy the most current one you can get from a second-hand store will save a lot of money.
• The Survival Medicine Handbook, Joseph Alton, M.D., Amy Alton ARNP
• Alton’s Antibiotics and Infectious Disease, Joseph Alton, M.D.
• Prescription & Over the Counter Drugs, Reader’s Digest – There are several different versions by different companies. Some specialize in specific types of drugs, such as for dentistry or areas of medicine. Get a general one to help you identify medications you are able to scavenge or before bartering for medicine in an emergency The better ones include 30 pages or so of color photos of common medicines from different manufacturers.
• Outdoor Survival Skills, Larry Dean Olsen – Scripture to Boulder Outdoor Survival School alumni. This book was instrumental in establishing modern primitive outdoor survival skills.
• The Ultimate Outdoors Book: Camping & Wilderness Survival, Paul Tawrell. – I was very skeptical of boastful title, but Tawrell delivers. It’s a big book, so it’s not going in your pack, but it is one of the more thorough books on the subject.
• AF Regulation 64-4 USAF Search and Rescue Survival Training, Department of the AF – 620 pages SAR and survival training. Puts the old US Army survival manuals (that survival writers so often regurgitate and reprint diagrams from) to shame.
• The Encyclopedia of Country Living, Carla Emery – Wonderful reference on homesteading.
• The Settlers’ Guide, Keith Smith – Selections from The Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, 1890-1910. It was obvious for Australian settlers, but applicable anywhere.
• Back to Basics: How to Learn from and Enjoy Traditional American Skills, Reader’s Digest – This book was published in 1981, but is worth tracking down a copy.
• Crafts & Hobbies: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creative Skills, Reader’s Digest – Preceded the book above by a couple of years and has more detailed information on crafts but there is little overlap between the two.
• Making The Best of Basics, Family Preparedness Handbook, James Talmadge Stevens – A classic on food storage/survival stockpile from the LDS school of thought.
• Nuclear War Survival Skills, Cresson H. Kearny – Lifesaving information for a threat that we may face one day.
• Radiation Safety in Shelters, FEMA – You will probably have to download a copy and print it. I did, and I recommend that you take the time to do it too.
• When Technology Fails, Mathew Stein – A curated collection of survival written by a mechanical engineering grad from MIT. A solid reference that is worth owning.
• Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, Nassim Nicholas Taleb – Taleb is brilliant and well-educated. His books are very well written and expound on risk, exposure, and the disproportionate effect of the highly improbable events. If you want to understand what survivalists means when they speak of “thriving instead of simply surviving”, this book is for you. If you like it, read The Black Swan too.

The Digital Library

Thanks to IT tech, it is possible to carry a truly massive library on a tiny memory stick that can accessed on either computer or smartphone. I suggest copying the libraries of your survivalist friends, and maybe getting a subscription to scribd.com for a few months while you download what you need. Or, with persistence and patience, one can download quite a few .pdfs from archive.org.

Just remember that it must be accessible completely offline, and you must be able to recharge the device. While that doesn’t sound complicated, it actually takes a lot of work. Do thorough testing with the device totally disconnected.

Hardware

• Flash Drive & Adapters – Accessible by both smartphones and computers.
• Data Backups on SSD with Cables – So you don’t lose important data.
• Rugged Smartphone – Should be water-resistant.
• Prepaid Phones – If desired.
  • SIM Cards
  • Prepaid Phone Plan PINs
  • Extra MicroSD Cards
• Solar USB Battery Pack with Universal Charging Cables – Can power the DSL for many years as long as you have sunlight.
• Faraday Bag, Shielded Pocket Liner – Ensures that your phone cannot communicate or be tracked until removed from the shielded envelope, provides water-resistance for cheap phones and shielding against HEMP. Carry any prepaid phones in Faraday pouches until needed.

Software

• Software and Apps – You will need a .PDF reader to read books, documents and maps saved in .PDF file format. You will also need different versions of your .PDF reader or editor for any devices you might need to use.
• Operating Systems, Drivers & Utilities – You will also need driver software to help computers and cellphones print and to configure amateur radios without connecting to the Internet. This will require that you include both installable software and any drivers they need to run properly.

Survival Reference Data

There is a lot of information one could want to have on hand. Here are the bullet points:

• Survival Books, Manuals & Articles – These should cover security, medical, shelter, water, food, communications and specific threats such as natural disasters, EMP, wilderness survival, specific environments and CBRNE.
• Survival References – These are not necessarily survival books but should cover topics necessary for survival in depth.
  • Self Defense, Security, SERE, Reloading
  • First Aid & Medical – Anatomy, diagnosis, emergency medicine, survival & austere medicine, tactical medicine, a PDR, drug reference with photos, nursing, orthopedics, obstetrics, minor surgery, and so on.
  • Wilderness & Urban Survival
  • Water – Water procurement, treatment and storage as well as DIY water pump and bio-sand water filter projects.
  • Homesteading & Food Production – Orchards, gardening, farming, livestock, dairy, beekeeping, wild edibles, fishing, trapping, hunting.
• Communications & Emergency Power – Include radio band charts, a current repeater directory, scanner directories of LE and emergency services frequencies, contacts.
• Military Manuals
• General Reference – Encyclopedias, dictionaries, school textbooks, etc.
• Foreign Language
• User & Repair Manuals
• Maps

I’m Never Coming Home Documents

Keep an encrypted digital copy of important documents in addition to the paper copies in your important documents pouch. There you will have the space for financial records, titles, insurance policies, info and photos, genealogy, videos, and even books, music, and videos for entertainment. Calling it your “I’m never coming home documents” helps one identify what to include.

References

Atske, A. P. (2021, March 06). About three-in-ten U.S. adults say they are ‘almost constantly’ online. Retrieved from pewresearch.org: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/03/26/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-say-they-are-almost-constantly-online/