Volume 10, Number 1
Feb 1986

Recent Disasters

• On Christmas Eve and over the next few days, over half a million rare books were lost to fire and mold at Jenkins Company, a rare book dealership in Austin, Texas. Many of then had leather bindings, of course, which were destroyed by the heat and water even if not touched by the fire. The building was not sprinklered, so the fire had a head start. Eleven fire trucks responded to the alarm and brought it under control in an hour. The company was without electricity or telephone for three days. It was not possible to save the books that were merely water-damaged because the insurance company would not allow the owners to move anything. Austin has a warm climate, so they were lost to mold. Librarians and dealers have called the owners from all over the country to offer help, and conservator Don Etherington made a personal visit.

  This disaster illustrates the need for organizations other than libraries, archives and museums to have disaster plans, and to share in the information network used by libraries for disaster planning, at least until they can establish networks of their own.

• On October 17th, a fire broke out in an elevator cab in the Huntington Gallery in San Marino, California. There was no one in the cab because it was after midnight, but the fire or the smoke triggered an intrusion alarm, then heat and smoke detectors outside the cab. The San Marino Fire Department responded within three minutes and put out the fire in 12 minutes, being careful to minimize water damage to museum objects (they are familiar with the building and its needs, and have drills there frequently). An unusual feature of this disaster was that the elevator doors were blown open by an explosion just as the firemen arrived. There was smoke damage and a few pieces were charred; cleaning has been carefully planned and will go on for a long tine. The January newsletter of the Western Association for Art Conservation, waac, says that the exposed books and paper materials are being cared for by the Huntington Library' s staff conservators, Ron Tank, Griselda Warr and Jim Corwin, working with the Art Reference Librarian Diana Wilson and her staff. These items have presented no special problems. (The report, by Jim Greaves, is a page and a half long.)

  In this case, there was a disaster plan and it worked, but the incident shows that you never can tell where trouble is going to start. The elevator cab met all code specifications, but apparently had a defective light fixture. The investigation is not complete yet.

• On Friday evening, March 8, there was a fire at the National Library of Australia which caused extensive damage. No detailed report has been seen yet. The library's computers were put out of service for months because burning plastics in the building left a deposit that fouled electrical contacts. Blame was put especially on sheets of polyethylene in an area undergoing construction.

  The ICCM Newsletter (#16, received in January) carried a notice that said that temporary staff bad been employed to remove soot from the rare book collections. The air conditioner is gradually being repaired, although it is unlikely to be fully operational for several months. (This was probably written last summer or fall. Their hot season comes during our winter months.)