The Region - News from May 5, 1986

As the last of an estimated 600,000 water-damaged books were hauled from the soot-blackened Los Angeles Central Library and dispatched to deep-freeze warehouses, library officials met to begin tackling what may prove to be the most difficult part of the clean-up--the task of finding a temporary home for the library’s 200-member staff and at least part of its undamaged collection. More than 220,000 undamaged or lightly damaged books remain on library shelves, while hundreds of thousands more have been moved to the Los Angeles Convention Center. Library officials have set up temporary headquarters on the 35th floor of the Arco Tower. The fire that gutted sections of the 60-year-old downtown landmark and destroyed as many as 20% of its more than 2 million volumes, displaced not only the library employees but those who administer the city’s 62-branch library system.