August 4, 2008 - Flood Damage to Libraries

From the University of Iowa:  The Art Library and the Rita Benton Music Library are still both closed due to the flooding of the arts campus at the University of Iowa. The Art Library is located on the second floor of the new Art Building West; and the Music Library is located on the second floor of the Voxman Music Building. After the Iowa River receded, flood recovery professionals began the clean-up process. Among the first steps the clean-up crews take is to install a large de-humidifier to circulate dry air throughout the building including the two libraries. Since Voxman Music is an older building crews have had to perform asbestos abatement on the lower level that was flooded.

Faculty, staff and students in art, music and theater have been relocated across campus and around Iowa City for the next academic year. Rijn Templeton, head of the Art Library, and Ruthann McTyre, head of Music Library have been in regular contact with the academic departments their libraries serve. Relocation issues for staff in the Art and Music libraries also remains in flux. Though most of them will be located in the Main Library's Information Arcade for the next year, Rijn and Ruthann may split their time in offices near relocated art and music faculty.

A materials request and delivery system is being developed so library staff can retrieve requested items from the Art and Music libraries for coming academic year.

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August 1, 2008 - Flood Damage to Libraries

From the Cedar Rapids PL Web site -- Viewing the first floor of the Cedar Rapids Public Library is deceiving. The ground floor has been stripped down to its concrete floor and walls and looks much like it did 25 years ago—under construction. Onlookers would never guess that just four weeks ago, it held secrets of the universe and answers to most questions.

Everything on the first floor of the 85,000 square foot facility - which occupies a city block - was lost to the flood including the entire adult and youth collections, public access computers, computer labs, and a state of the art check-out system.

Approximately 200,000 items in the collection were ruined by more than five feet of river water, including adult & youth fiction and non-fiction books, reference books, journals, magazines, newspapers, DVDs, and CDs.

In addition, thousands of furniture items, including tables, chairs, book carts, filing cabinets, shelving, and display racks were damaged beyond repair. Also, hundreds of pieces of electronic equipment, including computers, printers, fax machines, microfilm readers, projectors, recording equipment, video cameras, amplifiers, cash registers, electronic check out systems, security cameras, and public address systems—lost.

"The value of the library’s contents is still being assessed," says Interim Director Tamara Glise. "You can’t just look up the cost of a book on Amazon.com and figure that’s the replacement cost. Libraries have to include costs associated with processing each item."

The CRPL received good news recently when it was notified that items on the downtown library’s second floor—including children’s books—are in good condition and will be able to be re-circulated. "As you can imagine, when we heard this, we were ecstatic," said Glise. The books will be removed soon and stored until the library has secured temporary space. There isn’t room at the West Side Branch to display an estimated 60,000 children’s books in addition to approximately 32,000 items that were checked out at the time of the flood.

Damage to the building's major systems including its electrical, plumbing, heating and air conditioning systems - as well as the facility's structural soundness -- is still being evaluated.

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July 21, 2008 - Flood Damage to Libraries

Below is information from Tamara Glise, Cedar Rapids Public Library sent over Iowalib Friday, July 18, Under her message is more information from the Cedar Rapids Public Library's Web site.

Tamara Glise - Cedar Rapids

It’s been a pretty wild month, but we have been bolstered by fantastic support from our Board, support groups, city government & community.  I’ll boil it down to the basics:  Our facility received about 5 feet of water on the main floor.  It was unsafe for us to enter for a couple weeks after the flooding, which limited what we were able to save. We estimate (very roughly) that about two-thirds of our collection was lost.  The children’s illustration collection is safe, as are the 2^nd floor books (mostly children’s books.)

We are currently operating out of our West Side Branch in Westdale mall.  Bear in mind that our Main library is about 85,000 square feet, and West Side is 2,600 square feet. That will give you an idea of the tight quarters.  The mall management has generously donated a couple extra empty storefronts that approximately double the space we have there (around 5,000 SF with the addition.)  We are planning to open our “West Side Annex” with a Grand Opening celebration on August 1. 

Many of our staff has been assigned to help other city departments during this emergency. We’re grateful for this opportunity to keep our people employed until we are able to re-open in a larger space (as yet to be determined.)  Our downtown library will probably not be useable for at least a year. Our staff is fantastic!

Five of our own staff members suffered significant flood damage to their homes; two people lost their homes completely.

The library’s email server is still down. I have re-subscribed to this listserv using a city email address, so please use this address if you need to contact me.

We’re truly lucky in so many ways.  A third of our collection is intact, our building appears to have survived, our staff remains with us, and people have been wonderful to us.  We’re counting our blessings every day.

From the Cedar Rapids Public Library's Web site -- Viewing the first floor of the Cedar Rapids Public Library is deceiving. The ground floor has been stripped down to its concrete floor and walls and looks much like it did 25 years ago—under construction. Onlookers would never guess that just four weeks ago, it held secrets of the universe and answers to most questions.

Everything on the first floor of the 85,000 square foot facility - which occupies a city block - was lost to the flood including the entire adult and youth collections, public access computers, computer labs, and a state of the art check-out system.

Approximately 200,000 items in the collection were ruined by more than five feet of river water, including adult & youth fiction and non-fiction books, reference books, journals, magazines, newspapers, DVDs, and CDs.

In addition, thousands of furniture items, including tables, chairs, book carts, filing cabinets, shelving, and display racks were damaged beyond repair. Also, hundreds of pieces of electronic equipment, including computers, printers, fax machines, microfilm readers, projectors, recording equipment, video cameras, amplifiers, cash registers, electronic check out systems, security cameras, and public address systems—lost.

"The value of the library’s contents is still being assessed," says Interim Director Tamara Glise. "You can’t just look up the cost of a book on Amazon.com and figure that’s the replacement cost. Libraries have to include costs associated with processing each item."

The CRPL received good news recently when it was notified that items on the downtown library’s second floor—including children’s books—are in good condition and will be able to be re-circulated. "As you can imagine, when we heard this, we were ecstatic," said Glise. The books will be removed soon and stored until the library has secured temporary space. There isn’t room at the West Side Branch to display an estimated 60,000 children’s books in addition to approximately 32,000 items that were checked out at the time of the flood.

Damage to the building's major systems including its electrical, plumbing, heating and air conditioning systems - as well as the facility's structural soundness -- is still being evaluated.

University of Iowa Libraries -

The Main Library at the University of Iowa re-opened to the public on Wednesday, July 9 after being closed due to the flooding of the Iowa River for three and a half weeks. Luckily floodwaters never breached the Main Library, however nearly two inches of groundwater came up through drains in the lower level storage areas. These storage areas house Special Collections materials and books on compact shelving as well as some electrical equipment. Thanks to the efforts of hundreds of volunteers, we were able to clear five feet of lower shelves in Special Collections as well as sections of difficult-to-replace books.

When the Main Library re-opened Special Collections materials filled the third floor hallway and the fifth floor study lounge, and evacuated books filled the tables in the second and third floor reading rooms. An estimated 800 seats were unavailable due to the displaced materials. A computer lab in the Main Library, the largest on campus, is not operational; a transformer that supplies power to those stations was damaged and needs to be replaced.

Staff members and a few volunteers began moving these collections back to the lower level; however this is a slow and complex process. The Special Collections have been completely cleared from the third floor, evacuated books and materials still remain on the second, third and fifth floors. We hope to have all materials returned to the lower level before the beginning of fall semester.

New Hartford - With the generous support of several Iowa librarians, the New Hartford Public Library will soon have children's programs in a city building.  According to library director Valerie Ballhagen in a conversation late last week, work continues to take place inside the library building, including new walls, carpet and an electrical system.

July 11, 2008 - Flood Damage to Libraries

New Hartford Public Library hopes to reopen around the first of August.

Library Director Valerie Ballhagen said electricians were working on a new electrical system. They will have new carpet and walls. The State Library asked a building consultant to work with Valerie and she said that was very helpful. Libraries around the area will come in August to provide children's programs for New Hartford kids.

Elkader Public Library is still computing the damage costs, but have already spent $9,000 for new furnaces and a water heater. Director Jill Sanders said they are still waiting for someone to look at a damaged wall, and a security fence by the river has to be replaced. (The library sits right next to the river.) Luckily, none of the collection was damaged.

While the Cedar Rapids governing authorities predicted it will take $9 billion for flood recovery, rebuilding and flood mitigation, they did not sort out the total damage and rebuilding costs to the library alone.

The first floor of the library was gutted - 85,000 sq. ft. FEMA and the Corp of Engineers have not determined whether the building can be saved.

If they can use the building again, they estimate it will be at least two or three years. In the meantime, staff are trying to find temporary space in order to reopen.

We are still waiting to hear from the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library and the University of Iowa libraries.

The African American Historical Museum and Cultural Center of Iowa lost its entire library collection (1,000 books) in the Cedar Rapids flood.

Below is information from curator Susan Kuecker. She will happily accept monetary donations. Checks may be made out to the African American Historical Museum of Iowa, P.O. Box 1626, Cedar Rapids, IA 52406-1626. Please write "Library Fund" in the memo line of the check.

The library will also accept books as described below. Please contact Kuecker at curator@blackiowa.org before sending anything.

>From Susan Kuecker:

We are in the position to accept some books, but no more than 10 from any one source at any one time.

Some of the books that we lost that are the hardest to replace are older books considered to be classics in their field. We would accept paperbacks in good condition, but do prefer hardbacks. We am limiting books on fiction and poetry to African American authors with an Iowa connection - these will generally be attendees of the Iowa Writer's workshop.

We are interested in older books that show by-gone attitudes and also books considered classics. We are not interested in biographies or autobiographies of African American celebrities, sports figures, or actors and actresses. We are most interested in histories of and about African Americans. They do not have to be written by African Americans and do not have to have an Iowa connection.

We are interested in slave narratives and histories of slavery, the slave trade, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movement. We are only interested in books about the Civil War that have a strong African American connection such as Cornish's "The Sable Arm."