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A library without books

By Loren Keller

Staff librarians, board members and news reporters today got their first look inside the Cedar Rapids Public Library since five feet of floodwater filled the building last month and destroyed about two-thirds of its 300,000-item collection.

There wasn’t a whole lot to see on the tour beyond the bare concrete floor of the 85,000-square-foot facility that occupies a city block at 500 First St. SE.

“I just stood here and cried,” said Virginia Grant, a reference librarian who remembers when the library was under construction in 1985. “It was one big open room then and that’s what it is now. It’s hard to believe everything’s gone.”

The library lost nearly its entire adult and youth collections — including books, reference books, journals, magazines, newspapers, DVDs and CDs — as well as public access computers, computer labs and its state-of-the-art check-out system.

Damaged beyond repair were thousands of furniture items including tables, chairs, book carts, filing cabinets, shelving and display racks. Gone too are hundreds of pieces of electronic equipment, including computers, printers, fax machines, microfilm readers, projectors, recording equipment, video cameras, amplifiers, cash registers, security cameras and public address systems.

Marie DeVries, the library’s external affairs coordinator, said the value of the library’s contents is still being tallied and did not have a monetary estimate of the damage.

“We will be able to name every book that’s lost eventually, but we just got those servers back up so the numbers are estimates,” she said.

The 60,000 items in the second-floor children’s section will be removed when the library finds a temporary space for them, DeVries said. About 32,000 items were checked out before the flood.

The main library’s collection is now scattered among the Marion and Hiawatha public libraries and the West Side Branch in the Westdale Mall, 2600 Edgewood Rd. SW.

Susan Corrigan, president of the Cedar Rapids Public Library Board of Trustees, said the West Side Branch plans to open a 35,000-square-foot annex by Aug. 1 in a nearby space formally occupied by Famous Footwear.

“We have over 100,000 items that could be out on shelves and on display if we had the space for it,” Corrigan said.

The library is one of 310 flood-damaged buildings in Cedar Rapids being assessed by Globe Midwest Risk Management of Southfield, Mich., said the company’s managing director, John Levy.

Workers are providing temporary power to the building until it’s ready to reconstruct. The building’s electrical, plumbing, and heating and air conditioning systems, as well as the building’s structural soundness, are still being evaluated.

DeVries said little had changed at the library since it was built in 1985 though officials were planning a rehaul before the flood hit.

“It was built right before all the technology was brought in,” she said. “So everything that was in here was an add-on, all our computer bays and computer labs. It was not functioning as efficiently as it could, so we were getting ready to reconfigure the area to better accommodate the new technology and changes that happened over the last 25 years. So I guess that’s going to happen probably sooner than we anticipated.”

Both DeVries and Corrigan were optimistic about the library’s future and expect the city will make its reconstruction a priority. No library employees have been laid off; many of them are temporarily working in other city departments.

“I’m really confident about the city and its support for the library and we’re being included in all the plans for rebuilding the downtown. I also have a lot of confidence in this community that they’re going to back the library and make sure we continue as a vital part of this community,” Corrigan said.

In the meantime, patrons are urged to hold on to items checked out prior to the flooding and hold off on making donations.

“We’ve asked people not to donate used or new books right now because we have no space, no storage, no processing equipment. The librarians are putting together a wish list and probably this fall people that want to donate a new book to the library will be able to go online and do that,” DeVries said. “Right now we ask people to hold on to their books and keep an eye on our web site and the media. When that changes we’ll let everyone know.”