Donation Program And Renovations Nearly Complete At Colorado State's Morgan Library One Year After Flood
Thursday, July 16, 1998
Note to editors: Interested media may schedule a tour of the
renovated Morgan Library basement by calling the Office of
University Relations at (970) 491-6432. Media are invited to
attend a recognition ceremony for library donors and staff from
5-7 p.m. July 27 in the courtyard of Morgan Library.
FORT COLLINS--One year after the July 28, 1997 flood, crews
at Colorado State University's Morgan Library are in the final
stages of sorting a half million donated volumes, of which 80,000
are exact matches for volumes damaged in the flood.
Last year's flood filled the lower level of Morgan Library
with water, damaging 437,000 volumes and journals. Since then,
500,000 volumes have been donated from other universities,
faculty members, individuals and publishers. Of these volumes,
80,000-100,000 will be used by the library.
"We've made tremendous progress rebuilding our collection
thanks to the generosity of so many across the country," said
Camila Alire, dean of the Colorado State Libraries. "When
donations began pouring in, we launched a formal gift
solicitation and in nine months, donors produced more materials
than we could have anticipated. Some of these materials are exact
replacements for damaged volumes, others will be given to other
libraries or added to our collection after the flood recovery
process is complete."
Workers will finish sorting, binding, stamping, labeling and
shelving the donated materials in September. By then, Alire said,
there will be more than 80,000 pristine donated volumes on the
shelves for patrons' use.
The processing plant, now located in the library basement,
will be relocated to Green Hall August 1. This will open up the
remainder of the basement for refurbishing. The majority of the
interior has already been renovated and outside repairs on the
building are complete. A wall has also been built along the west
side of the library to prevent damage from occurring should a
flood like last summer's happen again. By this spring semester,
the entire lower level of the library will be open for patron
use.
"Concentrating on the donated materials before processing
the damaged volumes has given us the opportunity to put clean
undamaged materials back on the shelves," said Alire.
Of the top 100 most heavily requested journals from
interlibrary loan, donations were received for all except six
titles, according to Joel Rutstein, the librarian who has
coordinated the book donation program. Rutstein said about 20
percent of donated materials will be an exact match for material
damaged in the flood. He is currently working with other
libraries and overseas development networks to find appropriate
locations for donated materials Morgan Library cannot use.
The 437,000 books and journals that were damaged in the
flood were shipped to Texas and Wyoming last fall for restoration
through a special freeze-drying process. Seven-thousand test
volumes have been shipped to the university to examine for re-
use.
"We're anticipating that the contractor, Boss and
Associates, will start accepting restored material to be put back
on the shelves beginning September 1."
When the restored materials begin to arrive, Boss and
Associates' processing plant expects to process 25,000 volumes
each month.
As flood recovery efforts progress, library patrons continue
to access materials electronically through Morgan Library's
interlibrary loan program, a program identified by the
Association of Research Libraries as being one of the best in
North America. The number of borrowing transactions this year
went up to 150,000 from an average of 20,000 in past years.
"We were very fortunate to have so many automated library
services in place before the flood," said Alire. "Our electronic
interlibrary loan program enabled us to provide service for
patrons looking for inventory that had been damaged. Ninety
percent of requests were filled in two days or less. Many times
the remote receiving stations set up across campus delivered
articles in less time than it would take to walk to Morgan
Library and look them up."
On July 27, Morgan Library will host a reception and
ceremony to thank library staff and donors for their flood
recovery efforts. During the ceremony, a glass art piece
recognizing major contributors will be unveiled and placed
permanently in the library.
This page © 1997-1998 World Wide Express, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Many news stories on RamLine.com come from the Colorado State University Public Relations Office. You can get copies of the news releases directly by filling out this form.