Despite shifts toward a more collaborative approach to emergency management, little scholarly attention has focused on the roles of local public organizations and nonprofits that do not have explicit emergency management missions in disaster response. Scholars and government officials call for identifying key local actors and developing a more collaborative emergency preparedness approaches prior to disaster situations. In practice, emergency officials seldom recognize post-disaster efforts of these local actors. Efforts to anticipate the potential decisions and actions of organizations that do not routinely deal with disasters necessitate a better understanding of how managers perceive their post-disaster related roles and what may account for such perceptions. Focusing on public libraries in the U.S., this study draws on information gathered through surveys and semi-structured interviews with library managers and directors operating in Hampton Roads, Virginia. To further investigate variations in willingness to engage in emergency response among local jurisdictions, the study explores context-related characteristics such as organizational arrangements and features of the policy environment in which library managers operate as well as factors related to individual managerial practices. The study finds that library officials' perceptions vary across libraries. Variations range from a more defensive approach to a more proactive approach. Efforts to account for the extent to which officials would be willing to engage in a more proactive approach should consider both the emergence of individual-managers' entrepreneurial spirit and their involvement in community-based disaster planning. / Ph. D. / This study examines how public managers in organizations that do not routinely deal with emergencies perceive the role of their organizations in responding to natural disasters and explores what may help explain such perceptions. Focusing on public libraries in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, I found that managers’ entrepreneurial spirit combined with their sense of recognition and inclusion in the local emergency preparedness network were associated with willingness to engage in a more proactive approach to disaster response.