There has been a recent surge in the publication of academic literature examining various aspects of emergency inventory management for disasters. This article contains a timely literature review of these studies, beginning with an exposition of the characteristics of storage and delivery options for emergency supplies, with a particular emphasis on the differences between emergency inventories and conventional inventory management. Using a novel classification scheme and a comprehensive search of the inventory related literature, an overview of the emergency inventory management studies is also presented. Finally, based on this extensive review, a discussion is presented based on the critical issues and key findings related to the emergency inventory management field, and include suggestions for future research directions.