Flood Hits SCSU Library

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by Melinda Tuhus | Nov 30, 2006 1:10 pm

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Posted to: Higher Ed

Problem: A late-semester flood hit the main library at Southern Connecticut State University. Periodicals and academic journals stored on the lowest two floors suffered water damage when a pipe burst .
The solution? Freeze ‘em.

The water rose only six or eight inches, but the damage was caused by the high humidity that resulted from the flooding in the basement, said library Director Ed Harris.

The good news, he added, is that 90 percent of the usage of those materials is electronic and was not affected at all.

The material has all been removed from the building to be stabilized by a document reprocessing company. “The way to do this is to freeze it, and then let it thaw out under your control,” said Harris (pictured). It was trucked away in two refrigerated 18-wheelers, to be held at zero degrees F, in the company’s facility. “When it’s stabilized and dried, we’ll evaluate what can be restored and what needs to be replaced.”

He said he has no idea yet what kind of funding would be required. “We clearly don’t budget for floods. I’ll do what I always do, which is to go hat in hand and ask for money for what we need, and if it turns out we need more, I’ll ask for more.”

A percentage of the microform and microfiche collections was also damaged, and Harris said he doesn’t know exactly what process is used to restore them. The cause of the burst pipe has not been determined.

The library chief said the main impact of the flood will probably be more crowding of students into the upper floors, especially now near the end of the semester as students are busy working on term papers, since one of the lower floors included a lot of tables and carrels.

On the street level, the main room was fairly crowded. Senior Anthony Belenchia (pictured) was working on a term paper about sports nutrition. He said he hadn’t been affected at all by the flooding. “I’ve never even been down to that level.”

Harris said the flood could have caused a lot more disruption, if fewer of the holdings had been accessible online. Or what if the flood had affected the main floor, where shelves of books (pictured at the top of the story) sit dry and happy, lined up with lots of other happy bookshelves, waiting for a questing student or faculty member to take them out?

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