By the Book: The Recovery Effort at Tulane University

摘要

With all the talk of FEMA trailers, insurance fiascos, and rebuilding efforts in New Orleans, it's easy to forget that Hurricane Katrina hit area libraries hard. Tulane University officials came back to campus after the storm to find that 8' of water had turned the basement of the Ho ward-Til ton Memorial Library into a soupy mess of raw sewage, chemicals, water, and priceless library materials. "We had about 700,000 print volumes and recordings underwater for about three weeks," says associate dean Andrew Corrigan, in addition to roughly 1.5 million pieces of microform. Library management had to make quick decisions about what to save and enlisted Belfor, a disaster restoration specialist, to help recover collections of government documents, microforms, newspapers, and a music library.