LISNews: Librarian News

Princeton University has embarked on a difficult task: to reinvent the library for an age when information largely takes on electronic rather than print form. The $74 million, 87,000-square-foot facility (Peter B. Lewis Science Library) was designed by architects Frank Gehry and Craig Webb of Gehry Partners. The stacks you'd expect to find in a building housing collections as varied as astrophysics, biology and statistics have largely been banished to a surprisingly small high-density storage space in the basement.

More from Bloomberg.com, and additional photos on this Princeton blog.

What substance does not mix well with books?

Water, and unfortunately, plenty of it has been seeping into the library of the Florida Supreme Court in Tallahassee for the last few years.

Now, safety fences are being built around the Florida Supreme Court Building as work begins to stop water seepage into the basement that destroyed more than 11,000 library books. By 2006, the water intrusion forced the library to discard 11,646 library books worth about $37,000 that had suffered enough damage that they no longer were usable. Court staff had to clear out areas of the basement, install dehumidifiers, and use water vacuum cleaners whenever there was a heavy rain.

Wonder if Katherine Harris was affected by the humidity there during her tenure as Secretary of State?

After Hurricane Ike slammed Galveston, TX, September 13, there was little immediate word regarding the Rosenberg Library (web site inoperative), the 75,000 square foot complex downtown that houses a library, archives, and museum and serves as the headquarters for the Galveston County Library System. Now, John Augelli, the library’s executive director, tells LJ that he and two other staffers stayed behind "thinking it would be good to be there, to see what I could do." Initially, that wasn't much. Instead, they listened, and watched, as a storm surge wiped out the first floor with over six feet of water. "It was a sound that you’d never forget."

Now, the library is at the beginning of a long recovery that began with pumping out the water, emptying the first floor of what used to be the children's collection, and drying out the space to ensure that humidity does not damage valuable archival material. The library still lacks phone and web service. When that is restored, the library will post information on how to help. For nearly a week, residents like Augelli didn’t even have cell phone service, relying instead on text messages.

"I have devoted every minute and all my energy to the recovery process," Augelli told LJ in a phone interview today.

See full story here.

It's Avondale's $6.2 million Old Town Library (pdf) and it opens on September 15th. Detroit-based SmithGroup designed and Tempe-based Sundt Construction built the state-of-the-art library.

"In addition to incorporating green and energy-efficient aspects into the building, the architecture makes good use of natural light to create an inviting atmosphere inside the library," said Dan Davis, Avondale's parks, recreation and libraries director. AZ Central reports.