Survival Library After TSHTF
The Survivalist book series by Jerry Ahern was one of my favorite reads as a teenager. My favorite part that I remember was a “shelter walk-thru”. You see – the main character had a hidden underground shelter that after the first several books – he finally makes it to. Upon entering – the book describes the contents of the shelter in great detail. One of the parts of the shelter that I remember most was the library. It contained many different types of books including thosethat could be used to teach his 2 young children. The idea behind the shelter was to have everything necessary to survive pretty much anything – and keep civilization going.
With this in mind – I am going to describe some things that I have put together as far as a “survival library” as well as additional plans I have.
First – the purpose: The purpose of my library/information system is to secure valuable information that can be referenced after a TSHTF situation – whatever it may be.
Second – materials needed/used: Electronic information systems such as a tablet(iPad/Android), Kindle/Kindle Fire, Chromebook, and of course the laptop computer can store massive amounts of information of various types. The media can range from pictures (maps, directions, reference charts), books/manuals/guides in PDF format, as well as full motion video. Although the grid may very well be down after TSHTF – all of these electronic devices require very little power and should be satisfied with almost any backup power source.
Additionally – regular paper books should be stored in the event that electronic media becomes inoperable.
Third – Content: As I described initially – electronic media is a major component of my information preps. However – I am going to describe paper-based media first.
Paper Media:
Good old fashion books should is the mainstay of my preparedness library.
Right now I have a large collection of magazines such as Mothers Earth News, OFF GRID, and American Survival Guide. I purchase a decent number of magazines related to gardening, guns, and general preparedness. I save all my back issues as many of these issues provide some great reference material related to homesteading and gardening.
I have a number of survival & preparedness books right now. Most of them primarily involved with pre-SHTF preparation. I need to obtain more “reference”-type books – on things like plant identification, first aid, primitive shelter construction, and so on.
Right now – here is a picture of about half of my “survival” books:
Here is a list of books that I plan to purchase (with links built in so you can get more info):
•	A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs: Of Eastern and Central North America 
The Forager’s Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants 
Primitive Skills and Crafts: An Outdoorsman’s Guide to Shelters, Tools, Weapons, Tracking, Survival, and More 
Light Infantry Tactics 
Bushcraft 101 
Wilderness and Travel Medicine 
Green Eyes and Black Rifles: Warriors Guide to the Combat Carbine 
Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times 
The Everything Canning and Preserving Book: All you need to know to enjoy natural, healthy foods year round
Electronic Media:
Due to the storage capability of electronic media devices – I have incorporated a massive amount of survival & preparedness digital articles, books and video’s into my preparedness information system.
Right now my primary devices for accessing this information is a Chromebook computer and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 tablet (redundancy). My data is spread out among several media storage devices such as USB flash drives, external hard drives, SD cards and mini-SD cards. All data is duplicated and backed up among several storage devices – just in case.
I am in the process of trying to organize all of this information. I have it broken up into the following categories:
•	General Survival 
•	Gardening 
•	Food Storage 
•	Homesteading 
•	Military Manuals 
•	First Aid/Medical Books/Manuals 
•	Civil Defense/Nuclear, Biological & Chemical 
•	EMP 
•	Bugging Out/Evacuation 
•	Hunting/Fishing 
•	Movies – Entertainment 
•	Urban Survival 
•	Weapons
I have approx 20 gigabytes of this information organized. In addition to that I have another 60 gigabytes that needs to be gone through. By the way – much of this organized information in available right here – located in the Survival Downloads Section.
One other awesome resource that will likely go down after SHTF is the Internet. Well – I backup several large websites so they can be accessible offline. I have written about this before.
The above is what I have right now. My preparedness library is far from complete. Planned possible addition to my electronic media capability include the following:
Kindle Fire 7″ Multimedia Tablet – this thing is cool. A high quality book reader – I really want one of these as it is very easy to download the books I want at a cheaper price than buying the paper version. Another method of storing, retaining and backing up information.
Summary: Information after the SHTF will be important. I am trying to increase my skills and knowledge now to better prepare myself and not be as reliant on “books”.