Librarians Check Out Book-Saving Routines

Dozens of librarians gathered on a garden terrace of the Huntington Library Wednesday to witness a scene that most would consider tragic under different circumstances.

Members of the San Marino Fire Department, in full firefighting gear, were dousing hundreds of books with water.

After the firefighters had packed up their gear and retreated, preservationist Sheryl Davis and several colleagues began the meticulous task of pulling the delicate books from shelves, placing freezer paper around the volumes and between the leaves and placing the books in boxes.

The librarians had come from libraries throughout the Los Angeles area to participate in one of the first disaster workshops organized since two arson fires swept through the Los Angeles Central Library in 1986, destroying hundreds of thousands of volumes.

The workshop was sponsored by the Los Angeles Preservation Network, a group formed in 1987 to provide a forum for exchanging information on library preservation issues.

“We had long been conscious of a need for a group like this, so it was not a direct result of the Los Angeles Library fire; but that fire certainly brought home the danger that something like this can happen anytime,” said Christopher Coleman, preservation librarian at UCLA and an organizer of the workshop.

Wednesday’s workshop, the first of a series, focused on how to salvage wet books. The 50 librarians on hand split into five groups, each with a gray, multilevel shelf of dripping books to which to attend. The shelves had been sprayed with water periodically for two days to provide the kind of waterlogged conditions a major fire would produce, according to Coleman.

One of the first problems salvagers encounter is simply removing books from shelves because paper, when wet, will expand, causing books to swell and stick together.

“You don’t want to just pull them apart if they are books you are trying to save,” said James Corwin, a conservation specialist with the Huntington Library. “In some situations, you would actually have to dismantle the shelf to get to the books.

“It is especially difficult with leather-bound volumes. (Salvagers) have to really be aware of what kinds of books they are working with,” he said.

Participants were also instructed on how to pack water-damaged books destined to be frozen, one of the best methods of stabilizing material. Freezing buys the time needed to decide the best way to proceed, especially when large numbers of books are involved, Coleman said. After the Central Library fire, more than 700,000 volumes were frozen and stored.

One of the most important goals of the workshops is to remedy the lack of emergency plans among area libraries that deal specifically with preserving books after a disaster, Coleman said.

‘Minor Disasters’

“In the future, we hope to deal with all kinds of emergencies, such as what to do after an earthquake. Many libraries have minor disasters all the time, like leaking pipes, but few have a plan on how to deal with these situations,” Coleman said.

The plan can be as simple as formulating an emergency contact list and and contracting with suppliers and vendors who will provide material on an emergency basis.

Sharon Reeves, a librarian for the Southern California Gas Co., said the recent fire that swept through five floors of the First Interstate Bank building brought home the importance of preplanning.

“We are currently consolidating all of our departmental libraries, and we have more than 25,000 titles to catalogue, many historical documents we would like to preserve for generations to come,” Reeves said. “What this workshop has shown me is that not waiting for the disaster to happen is the most important consideration.”