the poor ol' library

As you all probably heard, our fair city of Louisville was hit hard by a rain storm-cum-flood on Tuesday, August 4. The damage sustained by the city was concentrated centrally, mostly between Broadway and Iroquois Park. Many people lost their cars underwater and a lot of houses had flooded basements. The University of Louisville Belknap campus was hard hit, being right in the center of the flood area. Damage was done to 13 buildings, including the caving of part of one building's roof; the Education School had to be completely shut down and its reopening time is unclear pending massive renovations. Also, the Music School took a lot of damage as well as the Houchens administrative building. As a student and teacher at the university, I'm concerned about how the university will handle the beginning of the school year, given the deficits it's operating under. Those concerns aside, however, UofL has had an organized response to the disaster and already a lot of work restoring the damage has been accomplished. Fortunately, there are a lot of smart, caring people at work, and volunteers are helping the diligent Physical Plant staff.

The real tragedy of the flood, however, has been the Louisville Free Public Library, a beacon of civic activity and benefits in our city. The LFPL suffered millions of dollars of damage to books, facilities and equipment, including the destruction of brand new electronic equipment for the recently-built Newburg branch that was supposed to open this month. Also, the main server (you know, the one that contains the library's ENTIRE EFFING CATALOG) is currently underwater. So. There is no internet at any library, no library website, the catalog is inaccessible (and possibly lost forever); I went to the St Matthews Eline branch earlier today and it was a ghost town. Usually it is one of the busiest branches, and it was midday on a Saturday. One can still check books out and return them, but without internet, there is almost no library traffic. It's really sad, and kind of scary. (Also, on a selfish note, Thomas and I have no idea when things are due because we always just look at our accounts online, and since there is no library website for the foreseeable future--or at least for the rest of the week--we are up the creek without a paddle, so to say. So we are gonna have some overdue books for sure.)

So, in short, the situation is pretty dire for the library. if you have a few dollars to spare, the library is taking donations:
The Library Foundation
301 York Street
Louisville, KY 40203
Attn: Flood Relief


More info about the flood can be found here:
Louisville Metro Government website
Library Journal.com
Business First Magazine

I'm gonna send them something myself. It's just so sad. Just to drive home the point, here are some pictures: