ALA President Michael Gorman, September 1:
Statement on disaster relief and ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans in 2006.
New Orleans Public Library, September 1:
NOPL staffer Tony Barnes reports he has been safely evacuated to Lafayette, Louisiana: “No idea what the status of our libraries are. Our mailserver is gone, and staff evacuated in all directions. I am trying to locate their alternate email addresses to check their status and work towards our library’s and city’s future. What I need: If you know (or are) anyone that works for NOPL and know an alternate email for them, email it to me. Our defunct mailserver address is @gno.lib.la.us. Please do not send me those. They are dead ends.”
Tulane University, September 1:
Director Lance Query wants to assure everyone that it appears that the university and the library are apparently coming out of the disaster in relatively good shape. Damage to trees and buildings is extensive. It appears, however, that the immediate neighborhood around Tulane was not flooded, although the recent break on a levee along a canal leading to Lake Pontchartrain could change this situation. He is not as confident about the condition of the library’s offsite storage. Lance also noted that the library has a disaster plan and capabilities are available to deal with damaged collections if needed. Of course, quality information is still very limited; the university’s email system not operating, land line phone services are not available, and cell phone service is overwhelmed with the current demands. Electricity is not available and will not be available for the foreseeable future. Police are not allowing people to return and thus on-site reports are unavailable.
Tulane’s emergency website is back in operation, and is regularly updated. At this point there is no prediction as to when the school will be open again.
The website for Loyola University (next door to Tulane) remains offline, as does the server for Dillard University, also in New Orleans.
Louisiana Library Association, September 1:
The association has set up an LLA Disaster Relief Fund and is now accepting monetary donations to assist school, public, and academic library restoration efforts in southeastern Louisiana. Please make checks payable to LLA-Disaster Relief and mail donations to LLA, 421 South 4th Street, Eunice, LA 70535.
Jeanne Essmeier reports: “St. Martin Parish Library in Breaux Bridge is taking the recently weeded adult fiction to the Cajundome and newspapers to Blackham for the pets.”
Linda Fox reports: “West Feliciana Parish Library in St. Francisville is A-OK and welcoming lots and lots of folks who have lost everything in the New Orleans area. We are giving away books, temp-loaning children’s books, printing out FEMA and LA Works packets, offering crayons and coloring books, and running a quiet children’s video for the little guys whose parents are on the internet. We’ve set up one library card to check out some materials temporarily. Losing a few books won’t be much of a loss after what we’ve heard. We just try to keep thinking of things to do to help.”
Loretta Gharst reports: “Here in Calcasieu Parish we have had many hurricane evacuees coming to our libraries throughout the parish to use our internet computers. Yesterday we collected and dropped off donated books and magazines at the civic center Red Cross shelter and opened up a computer lab in our downtown meeting room for the exclusive use of evacuees (it is within walking distance of the civic center). Every branch is reporting waiting lines for using the public computers. Staff have created a web page with links for the evacuees and are constantly updating it. Reference staff at the various libraries are gathering and distributing information to evacuees in their communities. Children’s librarians are setting up story programs with the Red Cross.
Beth Vandersteen reports: “Central Louisiana is bursting with evacuees in every possible location with more streaming in even as I type. People are pouring into the libraries to use the computers; we’ve waived print fees for FEMA forms, etc., and stretched the time limits whenever possible. We contacted the Red Cross about doing storytimes in the shelters on Monday, but they’ve not responded as yet; I’m sure that’s not first on their list! Rapides Parish Library in Alexandria began delivering reading material to shelters yesterday, along with coloring sheets, crayons, and library information flyers. We’ve put out library information on flyers as well as through the local media, set up collection boxes for toiletries and items needed in the shelters, broadcast news and movies on our TVs, and issued temporary library cards for those who want to check out materials. The Coast Guard and other entities involved in the rescue efforts have set up coordination centers in this area. ABC News was in our main library this morning needing some of our resources, and we were pleased that we met their needs.”
Geaux Library Recovery, September 1:
The LSU School of Library and Information Science Yahoo! alumni group SuperSLISter has created a Yahoo list to solicit and recruit a means for information professionals from around the country to network and volunteer to help with library and archive recovery and cleanup, and to help information professionals and their families recover. Anyone who can help should email Rochelle Hartman, who will post it to the list.
Heritage Preservation, September 1:
The Heritage Emergency National Task Force has received many inquiries about the status of cultural and historic resources in the path of Hurricane Katrina. It has set up a Hurricane Resource Page.
East Baton Rouge Parish (La.) Library, September 1:
Head of Children’s Services Pabby Arnold writes: “Baton Rouge Libraries open and running. New Orleans libraries are going to be a total loss, as will be anything in Jefferson, St. Bernard, St. Tammany, parts of Jefferson, and the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Alabama. We are currently gathering our extra gift books to take boxes to local evacuee shelters.
Southern University, Baton Rouge, September 1:
Dean of Libraries Emma Bradford Perry writes: “Southern University is open, since yesterday, for administrators and staff but the students will not return until Tuesday, September 6. We have several hundreds of evacuees housed here on the campus, some having arrived with just what they had on when they were rescued. Realizing this, I asked the library staff yesterday to go back home and get whatever they had (t-shirts, blankets, pillows, shoes, underclothes, socks, baby bottles, coloring books, water, etc.) for those in the campus shelter. The library ended up providing three cars and a van full of items for those housed here on campus. Some of them are using our computers here in the library to apply for FEMA help and this is not a problem since we have no students here this week. They are so grateful for everything; one lady told me she had had the same clothes on for three days, with no shoes and no shower during this time.”
Baltimore (Md.) Sun, September 1:
Regarding damage to Beauvoir, the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library in Biloxi, Mississippi, John Hildreth of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, says: “It’s maybe 500 yards from the beach, Ground Zero in Biloxi. We’d heard at first that it had been destroyed, but I found out today that it’s still standing on its foundations. The galleries (porches) are gone, and there has been significant damage to the house. We don’t know yet how all the papers in Davis’s presidential library have fared.”
A few days before Katrina hit, New Orleans museums sent out email messages to institutions in other cities requesting emergency storage space, according to Laura Lindsay, interim executive director of the Louisiana State University Museum of Art. “A lot of work was done to get art in safe places before the hurricane came through,” she said.
Beauregard Daily News, DeRidder, Louisiana, September 1:
The parish is using the Beauregard Parish Library website to distribute information on evacuees and area shelters to the public. The parish will list present shelters with the number of occupants on the website as well as the next shelter slated to be opened.
Ashley County (Ark.) Register, September 1:
The Crossett Public Library is offering three-day loans of donated books to evacuees, with a limit of five per family.
KTAL-TV, Shreveport, August 31:
Evacuees in West Shreveport, Louisiana, are visiting Shreve Memorial Library’s West Shreveport Branch for mid-morning meals. They say they are running out of money and are in desperate need of food. Library staff and patrons are donating and setting up food (small buffets) in the library’s meeting room each morning as evacuees come in to use the library’s internet service.
Association of Southeast Research Libraries, August 30:
University of Miami, Florida: The first university to be hit by Katrina, Miami is back in operation after some minor damage to a library facility on the south campus. Otherwise things are back to normal, save for debris on campus.
Florida International University in Miami is back in operation. No reports of damage.
Tulane University, New Orleans. Library Director Lance Query is in Houston, where he and his family have been evacuated. All university systems are down for the foreseeable future. The lower floor of the library houses government documents and the music collection; the offsite storage facility may also have suffered damage. It appears all library staff survived the storm safely.
Louisiana Department of Education, August 31:
Hurricane Katrina has destroyed or damaged schools and their libraries in at least six Louisiana parishes. That means that more than 135,000 students must, temporarily, find somewhere else to go. Superintendent of Education Cecil Picard has asked school superintendents around the state to take these children in. Thousands of teachers have also been displaced by Katrina. They will be needed by the school systems who will take in students who have been forced to evacuate.
Posted September 1, 2005.