Rebekah Branch | Hale Library Blog

Author: Rebekah Branch

Book Report: Wet materials and new warehouses

Posted on August 7, 2018August 15, 2018 by Rebekah Branch

As soon as K-State Libraries and Belfor Property Restoration employees were allowed back in Hale Library after the fire, we removed wet books as quickly as possible.

Several weeks ago, we wrote about that process: books were packed out of the building and stored in freezers on campus until they could be shipped in refrigeration trucks to a Belfor facility in Fort Worth, Tex.

Two weeks ago, Kathryn Talbot, preservation coordinator, and Michelle Turvey-Welch, head of metadata, preservation and digital initiatives at K-State Libraries, went down to Fort Worth to check on our materials.

Four people stand in a row smiling. — *From left to right, Jeff Zieber, Kirk Lively, Michelle Turvey-Welch and Kathryn Talbot at Belfor in Fort Worth. July 23, 2018.*

A total of 3,500 boxes of wet books were sent to the Belfor facility. Once they arrived, a two-step process of freeze drying and then cleaning the books began. The boxes stay in the freeze drying chambers for about a week.

Books that come out of the freeze dry chambers with mold on them are gamma radiated to kill the mold spores, and books with pages that dry wavy are pressed flat. After that, all items that are in acceptable condition will be transported back to Manhattan and stored in a leased offsite facility dedicated to clean materials.

“We reviewed the books during our visit,” said Talbot. “We believe that at least 90 percent of the books will come back to Manhattan. Some will be discolored or have wavy pages, but they are still usable. The books that could not be salvaged were those with excessive mold growth on the interior pages.”

A women looks into a brown box next to a giant freezer and a man stands behind her surveying the stack of cardboard boxes. — *Turvey-Welch surveys books that came out of the freeze drying chamber. July 23, 2018.*

Book Removal

Initially, we hoped that some of the books in Hale Library’s Stacks A-H could be cleaned inside the library. Unfortunately, the temperature and the humidity levels in the building are unreliable. It’s been difficult to ensure the consistent power that’s necessary to run the air conditioning units. As a result, more than 1.5 million items in Hale Library will be removed and cleaned offsite.

We are especially concerned about providing an environment that’s appropriate for materials from the Richard L. D. & Marjorie J. Morse Department of Special Collections. Air conditioning is struggling to reach those items on Stack G and H.

Student employees in orange vests and hardhats smile in Stack H. — From left: Student employees Patrick Dittamo, Andrew Le and Shannon Harkins were a part of the team that helped to label and inventory approximately 18,000 linear feet of shelving in Special Collections. That’s the equivalent to the length of 60 football fields! July 19, 2018.

Students use flashlights to inventory boxes of special collections' material. — Team members worked under heavy plastic sheeting that is in place to protect materials from water damage. Each shelf was labeled with location, range number, section number, and shelf number so they can be returned to the correct place. July 19, 2018.

Currently, Stack A has been emptied and Belfor is boxing and moving Stacks B and G. We are hoping to have the all eight stack levels emptied by the beginning of September.

Once those books are removed, they’re sent to offsite warehouse space. K-State Libraries has leased three separate buildings where dirty materials are stored. Executive Court, an office building near the airport that was most recently used by the College of Architecture, Planning & Design during the Seaton Hall renovation, has been filled with more than 68,000 boxes of books.

Since we have tens of thousands of additional boxes to accommodate, we’ve also leased space in the Ag Press building in Manhattan and an entire former lumber yard building on the east edge of Junction City.

Inside Ag Press building with plywood floors and boxes of books. — *The inside of Ag Press has been prepped with clean plywood floors, and boxes of books are filling up the new space. July 31, 2018.*

Boxes on pallets arrive at Hale Library — *A fresh batch of boxes is unloaded at Hale. They will be used to pack up books and other library material. About 14,000 boxes are delivered multiple times a week. July 31, 2018.*

Belfor employees take apart book shelving on the fourth floor of Hale. — *With the books removed from fourth floor, Belfor takes down the shelving for removal. August 2, 2018.*

Parts of book shelves are piled in an alcove. — *Book shelving parts are piled in an alcove on the fourth floor. August 2, 2018.*

Obviously, most of our collection will be unavailable during the 2018-19 academic year. However, we still have access to hundreds of databases and other online resources. Current periodicals are located in the Math and Physics library. Course reserves are available so students can access textbooks and other materials at Library Help in the Union. Interlibrary Loan is up and ready for requests if we don’t have what you need.

Have questions? Contact us via Ask a Librarian! And again, if you’re looking for help in person, visit Library Help in the Union, which is located across from Radina’s, or stop by one of the other library locations (Math/Physics Library, Weigel Library of Architecture, Planning & Design or Vet Med Library).

Week Ten Building Update

Posted on August 3, 2018August 15, 2018 by Rebekah Branch

Since our last update, we’ve been hard at work creating a blank canvas on which to build our new Hale Library. Crews have removed a huge variety of items from the building, including entire rooms full of shelving components and a one-ton air conditioning unit.

Inside the building

Most of the books have been removed from the first floor, with the exception of a small portion of Stack A. Once all the books are removed from a space, crews start dismantling shelving units.

Several white metal bookshelves are lined up behind each other, exposing an empty room. — *Here, only the shelving framework remains after the shelves were removed. Note the imprint of the books left behind in the soot at the bottom of this photo. July 25, 2018.*

White metal bookends and shelves lay in stacks on the ground. — *Metal bookends and pieces of shelving units piled on the floor of Room 117, which is the ground floor of the 1927 building. July 25, 2018.*

Crews are removing compact shelving from the third and the fourth floors, too. The majority of bookshelves are unsalvageable due to smoke and water damage.

An empty green room with pallets on the floor and tools scattered on the floor. — *Room 117 was tightly packed with movable shelving units. It was an out-of-the-way study space that students valued for its isolation and beautiful natural light. July 25, 2018.*

Recently we found mold growing in the wood display cases by the second floor entrance, so they had to be removed. Previously, the display cases featured rotating exhibits that highlighted the Libraries’ services and collections.

A large wooden cabinet display is being deconstructed by workers. — *The cabinets next to the entrance have been dismantled. July 31, 2018.*

Lead abatement has been completed in Room 212, the second floor of the 1927 building. Before the fire, this space was filled with cubicles that were occupied by iTAC employees. Large swaths of the walls are now bare of paint, which will help the plaster dry more quickly.

*Room 212 a few days after the lead abatement. July 31, 2018.*

HVAC Removal

Three massive heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) units on the roof that were close to the source of the fire were deemed not salvageable, so they had to be removed.

A large crane extends up past a five store limestone building. — *Since the largest of the units was about eight feet tall and eighteen feet long, we brought in a crane to do the job. July 26, 2018.*

The metal arm of the crane extends high above the tan, peaked roof of the library as it lifts a large, rectangular piece of the HVAC unit. — *The largest unit was cut into three pieces to make it easier to lift off of the roof safely. July 26, 2018.*

When the pieces were on the ground, Jeremy Sharp, a K-State facilities program manager, noticed that pieces of the aluminum had melted from the fire. To inflict that kind of damage, the heat would have needed to reach 1100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Two men stand next to a large metal rectangle unit and one man stands inside of the unit that is just as tall as he is. — *The units are tall enough that grown men are able to stand inside of them comfortably. July 26, 2018.*

Renovation

We are now in the early stages of meeting with PGAV, an architecture firm that is working on both damage assessment and the plans to renovate Hale Library. There is still a long road before we will be able to reopen, but it is an exciting time to start planning for the future.

A group of people sit around a table with blueprint on them. — *Lori Goetsch, Dean of Libraries, and other library staffers meet with architects from PGAV, the firm that is helping with the renovation. July 19, 2018.*

A group of people sit around a table with blueprints and a blonde woman is extending her arm to a blueprint to point at something. — *Library employees share how they used the old Hale Library, what they loved about it and what they would change. July 19, 2018.*

We are still in the initial stages, but this gives us all a glimpse of what’s to come.

Hale Library: Finding the unexpected

Posted on July 31, 2018August 15, 2018 by Rebekah Branch

Hale Library has seen a lot of damage from smoke and water, but even in times of chaos, we continue to capture images of unexpected humor and beauty.

The limestone siding of Hale shows water leaking out from the water used to put out the fire. — *Two days after the fire, Hale still had water leaking through the limestone. May 24, 2018.*

The great room covered in water reflects the decorative windows on the floor. — *In the midst of destruction we find beauty. Seeing the ornamental window reflected in the water creates the illusion of calm in chaos. May 24, 2018.*

A woman in an orange vest and a white hard hat sits in a chair under a sign that reads get comfy and tell us what you think. — *Dean Lori Goetsch sits under a sign that says “Get comfy and tell us what you think” that was put up before the fire and survived the damage. June 8, 2018.*

A limestone wall has dead vines climbing up the side. — *We found dead vines behind the drywall that are at least 26 years old. July 2, 2018.*

Red puzzle pieces on a dark blue table are scattered around to reveal light blue puzzle shapes left on the table. — *Another unusual finding: Puzzle pieces on the fourth floor that—when moved—left their shapes behind in the soot. May 28, 2018.*

A desk with a round mouse pad has been moved to show a perfect circle where the mouse pad once sat. — *The soot covered every surface, so when items are moved it leaves a perfect imprint behind. June 29, 2018.*

A woman in an orange vest holds a cardboard cutout of a teenage boy in a blue sweater and white pants. — *Kathryn Talbot found a cardboard cutout of Niall Horan on the third floor that came from the old Communication and Marketing Office. May 31, 2018.*

Thick white tubes are hanging through the window and scattered all over the corridor. — *The tubes that stretch throughout the building create a science fiction atmosphere in the library. May 31, 2018.*

White tubes are sticking out of windows and extend to the metal chain link fence. — *The science fiction effect extends outside the building, too. The tubes stick out of the windows and connect to generators that push cool air into the building. May 31, 2018.*

A quote from Nelson Mandela on a white board that reads "It always seems impossible until it's done." — This inspirational quote was posted during finals week and has become an unofficial motto for library staff and Belfor crews. The majority of the whiteboards have been removed with exception of this one, which everyone passes when checking in or out of the building. The sign was created by Jordyn Peyla, a student worker in the Media Development Center.

Camila Alire: The library world’s “disaster queen”

Posted on July 26, 2018August 15, 2018 by Rebekah Branch

The Hale Library fire was unprecedented. Even after the smoke cleared and K-State Libraries’ employees went back to work, it can still be difficult to comprehend the scale of the damage.

“We’ve got 1.2 million volumes that need to be restored and we’ve taken the interior of the library down to the studs,” Lori Goetsch, Dean of K-State Libraries, said. “It’s very significant. That we know of, there is not an academic library in the United States that has experienced devastation at this scale.”

At the July 18 K-State Libraries all-staff meeting in Leadership Studies’ Forum Hall, we turned to Camila Alire, a retired library Dean from Colorado State University (CSU) and the University of New Mexico (UNM), for perspective. Alire is known as “the disaster queen,” having been through not one, but three library crises. She has literally written a book on disaster, “Library Disaster Planning and Recovery Handbook.” In her retirement, she acts as a consultant for libraries who experience similar setbacks.

Dr. Camila Alire was the Dean of Libraries at Colorado State University and University of New Mexico. Courtesy of American Library Association.

“Your disaster is extremely hard,” Alire said. “Not only did you have fire, but also you had the water damage. It is going to take you a long time to be back whole again, but I would tell you that this, too, shall pass.”

Goetsch asked Alire to talk to the K-State Libraries’ staff as we consider our future as a library and think about what we can expect during the recovery process. Her hope was that talking about the disasters she has experienced would help give staff members perspective on how to act and react.

A red book cover that reads Library Disaster Planning and Recovery. — *Library Disaster Planning and Recovery Handbook written and edited by Alire.*

“We have all been through a stressful ordeal and there is a lot of uncertainty with that,” Goetsch said. “I invited Camila to our staff meeting to help them understand what we might go through in the next few years.”

On July 28, 1997, just nine days after Alire started her job as Dean of CSU Libraries, Fort Collins experienced major flooding from the Cache La Poudre River. The entire city was affected, but the library was the campus building that was hit the worst.

In only four hours, they received six inches of rain. The water flowed quickly at 5,000 cubic feet per minute and put extreme pressure on the outside library wall. This pressure broke an eight-foot hole in the wall and flooded the entire basement, damaging and submerging over half a million volumes.

A giant hole is in the side of a tan building. — *The pressure of the water up against the building caused a hole in the wall of the library.*

While students were locking up the library that night, they went down to the lowest level to check for any remaining patrons, and that was when they heard a crack. They were aware enough to know that the sound was out of place, so they ran back up the stairs. Seconds later thousands of gallons of water poured into the basement, just as they reached the landing. It was the violent flow of the rushing water that did the most damage to the basement. If the water had been stagnant, the flood would not have been as destructive.

“Every bound volume that was down there [was] damaged,” Alire said. “The UFOs (unidentified floating objects) were entirely thrown out.”

A dark room with orange book shelves tipped over. — *The rushing water caused a lot of damage to the basement of CSU Library.*

A few years later, Alire became Dean of Libraries at UNM. During winter break, on Dec. 24, 2004, a pipe burst in the Science and Engineering Library. There was water damage throughout the entire building and all 300,000 volumes had to be packed out. Luckily, they got to the damage quickly and were up and running a few months later.

“The engineering library was the easiest,” Alire said. “Everything went smoothly, the consultant that they hired to come in was easy to work with, everyone got along, and it was excellent.”

She also commented that it was fortuitous that the flooding happened during a semester break: “Luckily for us—and I think this is probably an advantage when it happened [at Hale]—is you don’t have … a majority of the students and faculty here on campus in the summer,” Alire said.

Finally, on April 30, 2006, Alire faced her last crisis: A major fire in UNM’s Zimmerman Library. This was an entirely different disaster for her to deal with and most similar to what Hale Library experienced. In this case, arson destroyed 28,000 volumes and 60,000 square feet of the building. In total, soot and smoke damage covered 242,752 square feet. The heat was so intense that it melted metal on the bookshelves, but fortunately, a lot of books were salvaged.

Brown bookshelves lean to the right with books still in them. — *The heat of the fire was so intense that it melted the metal on the bookshelves.*

The difference between her three disasters and the fire at Hale was the magnitude. In every event Alire experienced, the libraries were open to the public within a matter of months. Hale Library’s recovery and renovation process might take up to two years to be completely functioning.

“Dean Alire really gave some sage advice on how to get through a major crisis,” Laurel Littrell, planning and assessment librarian, said. “At the same time, it also put our situation in perspective. Even though she’s the country’s foremost expert on library disasters, none of her institutions’ experiences compare to the scope of what happened in Hale Library, especially in terms of how long the building will be closed.”

Alire preached the message that, although this disaster is difficult now, there are silver linings. In our case, Hale was going to be under renovation for the first floor, but now we have the opportunity to renovate all four floors, making the entire building better for students, staff, and faculty

Help for Hale: Belfor Property Restoration

Posted on July 24, 2018August 15, 2018 by Rebekah Branch

Hale Library is in recovery, but we would not be as far as we are now without Belfor Property Restoration. Their crews have been working very hard for up to twelve hours a day, six days a week in challenging conditions.

A group of people gather around each other in Yellow vests. — *A fraction of the Belfor crew gathers on the walking mall east of Hale Library. There are nearly 200 Belfor employees that are working on the recovery. June 11, 2018.*

A Belfor worker in an orange vest in front of Hale next to a red tent. — *In order to get in and out of Hale Library, you must sign in with Belfor staff. There is always a worker stationed at the check-in tent. June 28,2018.*

A pallet of bottled water sits in the back of a black truck. — *Belfor crews are tackling labor-intensive work. In order to ensure they are healthy and hydrated, Belfor buys pallets of water in large quantities for their workers. June 28, 2018.*

A Belfor worker in a yellow vests lifts up carpet next to white bookshelves. — *A Belfor worker tears the flooring out of Room 117. Room 117 is one of the areas that sustained the most damage since it was under the Great Room. June 28, 2018.*

Every inch of the library must be cleaned, including the spaces above the drop ceiling grid and the duct work. A Belfor worker stands on a ladder cleaning with a chemical sponge in order to remove the soot. June 28, 2018.

Red scaffolding on wheels sits under an exposed ceiling that has silver metal tubes sticking out of it. — *The duct work and the ceiling all need to be cleaned, so they have portable scaffolding to reach everything safely. June 28, 2018.*

A Belfor worker builds scaffolding in front of the Ornamental windows in the Great Room. — *Belfor workers build scaffolding in the Great Room to help restore the space. June 28, 2018.*

Belfor workers stand on metal scaffolding under a giant hole in the ceiling. — *The scaffolding on the south side of the Great Room will allow workers to preserve the murals. June 28, 2018*

A dark room with metal beams, shelves with books, and cement flooring is lit up by a single bulb. — *Some of the work was done by flashlight since commercial power has only been restored to the data center and a few of the elevators. May 31, 2018.*

A dark room is lit up by a light in the distance that shows people in yellow vests working. — *While much of Hale Library is still dark, portable lighting powered by generators is available in parts of the building. June 28, 2018*

What happens to smoke damaged books?

Posted on July 17, 2018August 15, 2018 by Rebekah Branch

A few weeks ago we talked about what happened to the wet library books after the fire in Hale Library, but there were also over a million books in the library that suffered smoke damage and require treatment.

The soot from the smoke damaged every inch of the library, and it has proven very difficult to remove from surfaces. A combination of the smoke, water, heat, and non-climate controlled building left most surfaces stained. Typically soot can be wiped away, but in this case, it is almost baked on.

This resistant soot is an anomaly that Belfor, an international disaster relief organization, has not experienced before. Because this is such a strange occurrence, we sent a few books from different parts of the library to the preservationists at the Library of Congress where they will be tested and researched.

Books lined up behind a white shelf that shows a brown outline of where the books used to be. — *Soot stains outline where books were shelved.*

“This soot was different from what I typically dealt with in the past because [it] causes a stain,” Kirk Lively, director of technical services at Belfor, said. “It’s not something that you wipe your finger through and you come up with a black smudge on your finger. It’s actually stained onto the surfaces.”

While we wait to hear from the Library of Congress, we continue to move books out of Hale Library over to Executive Court, a process Belfor has been working on since May 25.

K-State leased Executive Court, an office space near the airport that was most recently occupied by the College of Architecture, Planning and Design during the renovation of their Seaton Hall Complex. As of now, books from rooms 117 and 222 have been moved to Executive Court as well as most of 3rd and 4th floors. We estimate 500,000 books are currently at Executive Court waiting to be cleaned.

A side by side photo shows a giant empty room and the same room filled with boxes. — *Executive Court before and after boxes of books were transported.*

To clean a soot-covered book, a HEPA vacuum is used on the book’s exterior to remove most of the dirt and soot. Next, the cover, the back, and the spine of the book are wiped down with a dry chemical sponge. After the outside is clean, the book is opened and the fore edge of the pages is fanned in both directions and wiped down. It takes about 20 minutes to complete this process on a box that holds 12 to 15 books.

Kay Rieder, Belfor project manager, demonstrates how smoke damaged books are cleaned.

After they go through this manual cleaning process, all of the books will go into an ozone chamber in order to neutralize the smell and draw out the carbon. Belfor has built two ozone containment centers in Executive Court.

A white tent in the a large room with cardboard boxes. — *One of the ozone chambers that neutralizes odors on books.*

After the books are out of the ozone chamber, they go through a “white glove” quality control check. If any soot comes off the book or a smell still lingers from the fire, that book goes through the cleaning process again. Ozoning books can accelerate deterioration of items, so they will not ozone a book more than needed.

A women holds a pink book up to her nose and smells it. — *Kathryn Talbot, preservation coordinator, checks for any lingering odor from smoke on clean books.*

The cleaning process of some of the books has begun, but the crew cannot begin cleaning them in earnest until more warehouse space is acquired to store the clean materials. It is important not to put clean books near the carbon-covered books because the clean books would absorb those chemicals again.

Blue tape lines the floor in grids and brown boxes are stacked in the boxes. — *To keep the books in order, Belfor put grids on the floor with tape. Each shelf in the library has a corresponding grid in Executive Court.*

One of the challenges with Executive Court is the inability to move books on pallets, because they don’t fit through the doorways, which slows down the cleaning process considerably. Pallets allow dozens of books to be moved at the same time but instead the boxes are managed by hand and small carts.

Currently, the few hundred boxes that have been cleaned were moved to the Library Annex. The annex is an offsite location near Executive Court that holds part of the Libraries’ collection. Patrons are able to request books from the annex, and then they are delivered to an on-campus library help desk.

After the books are cleaned, some of the books will be ingested into the annex and will be available for check out upon request. The annex is unable to hold the entire library collection, so hundreds of thousands of additional books will be sent to additional warehouse space, once it is acquired.

At Executive Court, boxes are stacked seven boxes high and fill the entire building.

The Libraries have received many questions as to why we don’t claim the books as a loss to insurance. For us, its not just about how much it would cost to replace them.

“Many of our books and other materials are out of print,” Roberta Johnson, director of administrative and IT services, said. “K-State’s resources are the result of years of collecting and carefully managing materials that provide the most relevant information to the faculty, staff and students.”

Not only are some of the books out of print, but it would take an exorbitant amount of time for the acquisitions and collection development department to search for and purchase the material. It would be a major undertaking to replace approximately 1.2 million volumes.

There is no set time frame for the books to be cleaned. As of right now, Belfor estimates it could take between six to twelve months.

Hale Library: Week six update

Posted on July 3, 2018August 15, 2018 by Rebekah Branch

Today marks six weeks since the fire at Hale Library. Since last week, carpet has been completely removed from several floors, more of the drop ceiling system has been taken out, scaffolding has started going up in the Great Room and crews have begun the labor-intensive process of wiping soot from every surface in every room.

As you’ll see here, the some of the changes are quite obvious!

The Great Room

The Great Room was the area that received the most damage from the fire, and it will take the longest to restore. In perhaps the most visually dramatic change, scaffolding is being constructed throughout so that crews can access the walls and ceiling and start the cleaning and restoration process.

The murals are on plaster walls that are still drying out, and we are working with preservationists in order to save them.

Workers construcing scaffolding along the murals in the Great Room. — *Scaffolding on the south wall against the murals. June 28, 2018.*

The Great Room ceiling: At left, a wooden beam that extends across the space has split lengthwise. At right, green mold spreading across the white plaster. — *Scaffolding will allow workers to access the Great Room ceiling, which warped and split one of the wood beams and caused mold on the ceiling. June 28, 2018.*

The First and Second Floors

If you read our five-week update, you know that most of floors have been cleared of furniture, carpet and drop ceilings.

As of this week, the first and second floors are completely empty. It’s exciting to see a blank canvas emerging. Now the area can be cleaned, and we can start thinking about its future.

Dozens of students on the second floor of Hale Library study and use the computers and printers. — *The second floor before the fire.*

Second floor of Hale Library after the carpet and ceiling tiles were torn out. — *The second floor on June 6 before the furniture, technology, ceiling grid and lights were removed.*

*The second floor on June 28, 2018, after the carpet, furniture, technology, drop ceiling system and some areas of drywall were removed.*

Hundreds of cardboard boxes sitting on the concrete floor are stacked four high. — *During the initial push to remove furniture and books from Hale Library, the first floor was used for storage. June 11, 2018.*

First floor of Hale Library with ceiling, carpet and furniture removed. — *Now, first floor has been cleared of all furniture and boxes. It is empty and ready for thorough cleaning. June 28, 2018.*

Isolated Mold Outbreak in the Stacks

The library is a 550,000-square-foot building, and most of it is still without commercial power, which means that many of our inspections have been conducted with flashlights.

Of course, we are always looking for emerging problems throughout the building, even in places where we initially thought the damage was minimal. However, we now know that lack of light prevented us from identifying one area of concern.

In the last week, we found mold in a small, isolated section of the stacks.

A close-up of mold blooming across the tops of several books. — *A small section of books has been affected by a mold outbreak. June 26, 2018.*

Mold blooms across the fore-edge of several books sitting on metal shelving. — *A small section of books has been affected by a mold outbreak. June 26, 2018.*

So what happened? As the hundreds of thousands of gallons of water that permeated the building during the fire drained from the top floors to the bottom, it flowed along any unrestricted path available. Initially, the stacks were dry, but some of that water drained down the edges of a pipe. Since there is a gap around the pipe where it passed through each floor, water seeped through to the levels below. As the water progressed down the exterior surface of the pipe, books in the immediate vicinity got wet.

Red pipe passes through a hole cut in the drywall ceiling. — *Pipe that passes through several levels of the stacks. June 26, 2018.*

Since this discovery, we have removed the affected books. We remain vigilant for similar leaks and pockets of moisture throughout the stacks.

Packing and Removing Books

Since the last update, we continue to remove books from the library for cleaning at an offsite location. Currently, crews are boxing and moving books on the third and fourth floors.

As of July 2, crews have packed more than 38,000 boxes of books and library materials.

Until June 28, the elevators were operating thanks to power from generators, but the elevators still didn’t have lights, so crews were moving books from the upper floors to the ground floor in the dark.

Rows of empty white metal shelving units. — *Empty shelves on the third floor that were once filled with books. June 28, 2018.*

Boxes of books are pushed on carts to be removed from Hale for cleaning. — *Belfor workers help load out boxes of books from Hale’s fourth floor for cleaning. June 28, 2018.*

Cleaning Fifth Floor

The fifth floor was relatively unscathed, but it still needs to be professionally cleaned to remediate soot and smoke damage. Even ductwork will be cleaned throughout the entire building.

On fifth, crews are cleaning every accessible surface that was exposed to soot and smoke. It’s a very labor-intensive process. First they vacuum all surfaces—walls, windows, doors, everything—with a HEPA vacuum, which is a vacuum affixed with a filter that can capture particles of 0.3 microns with 99.97% efficiency. Next, the crew goes over everything again with dry chemical sponges. And finally, they wipe the surfaces down with clean washrags.

This process will be repeated on every surface throughout the entire building.

A circular room without ceiling tiles with only ceiling grids and duct work exposed. — *The fifth floor hemisphere room with ceiling tiles gone, exposing duct work in the ceiling.*

In the fifth floor, ceiling tiles have been removed, which makes the ductwork accessible for the cleaning crew.

A women with a yellow vest stands on a ladder vacuuming the metal grids on the ceiling. — *A crew member HEPA vacuums near the ceiling before sponge cleaning.*

All surfaces are cleaned with HEPA vacuums before they are wiped down with chemical sponges.

A women in a yellow vest holds a long pole with a chemical sponge to clean the inside of the ceiling and duct work. — *A crew member uses a chemical sponge to wipe down the ceiling and duct work.*

In order to reach every inch of the soot with a chemical sponge, the crews put them on long poles.

Two black trash bags sit next to each other. In the left bag are dirty yellow chemical sponges and in the right bag are brown dirty wash rags. — *Used chemical sponges and rags have to be disposed of.*

Emptying damaged furniture, construction materials and books from the library is part of the process of creating a clean slate. Day-to-day, sometimes it feels like a slow process that requires an overwhelming amount of labor. When we think about the big picture, though, it’s an exciting first step toward renovating Hale Library and creating a new, vibrant research environment that will serve the entire K-State community.

We’re taking a break for the rest of the week, but check back early next week for the latest Hale Library news! Have a fantastic Independence Day, all!

Hale Library: Week five update

Posted on June 26, 2018August 15, 2018 by Rebekah Branch

Today marks five weeks since the May 22 fire at Hale Library. In this update, we have a lot to share about our demolition progress.

A huge amount of damaged drop ceiling, drywall and carpet has been removed.

Ceilings

Ceiling grid and tiles are caving in after suffering water damage. — *Second floor, Media Development Center, May 31, before ceiling removal.*

Ceiling tiles and grids are removed from a hallway, exposing pipes and electric wiring. — *Second floor after ceiling tiles were removed, June 14.*

A room with ceiling grids up without ceiling tiles, leaving the tubes and electric exposed, while the furniture is covered in white plastic. — *Second floor after ceiling tiles were removed, June 8.*

Ceiling grids have been removed from the library and tubes and wiring are even more exposed, while furniture is covered in white plastic. — *Second floor of Hale Library with all ceiling grids removed, June 14.*

Walls

There was also extensive water damage to the drywall. In some areas, only a few feet needed to be removed, but in other parts, the entire wall had to be demolished and only metal studs remain.

Yellow wall with spray paint marking two feet of wall needing to be removed, while two feet of the wall has been removed, exposing metal studs. — *Second floor, June 14. Two feet of the wall was removed since only the lower portion was damaged*

Dry wall has been removed, leaving only metal studs in its wake and exposing a wall sign for the Center for the Advancement of Digital Scholarship. — *First floor, June 8. In the Center for the Advancement of Digital Scholarship (CADS), half to all of the drywall was removed.*

A hallway has all of the carpet, ceiling tiles, and try wall removed, leaving only metal studs and cement flooring. — *First floor, northwest corner, looking east down the hallway that runs between Room 117 and Stack A, June 14. The majority of the drywall was removed from this portion of the building.*

A room with debris over the floor and a single light in the middle of the room shows a wall with only metal studs and no dry wall. — *Fourth floor, Academic Learning Center, June 14. The ALC is the on-campus tutoring facility for student athletes; this space experienced extensive damage and will be gutted.*

A stairwell is caution taped off with the side wall exposing metal studs and electric wiring. — *Fourth floor, north stairwell, June 14.*

Dry wall has been removed showing a limestone wall behind metal studs. — *Second floor, June 14. When drywall was removed, limestone from the exterior of the 1955 Farrell Library addition was exposed.*

Looking through a metal chainlink fence lays brown baseboards next to purple dumpsters. — *Baseboards were water damaged and will be disposed of along with the drywall and drop ceiling system.*

Furniture and technology: Soot damage

Most of the furniture in the building was damaged beyond repair and will need to be thrown away. The tables that were located across all five floors of the building suffered so much smoke damage that the toxic soot cannot be cleaned off of them.

Already, the majority of the furniture from the first through the third floors has been disposed of. All told, it filled a large industrial dumpster 65 times.

Because the soot from the smoke is so toxic, every inch of ductwork in the 550,000-square-foot building will need to be taken down and professionally cleaned.

In addition to the ductwork, all surfaces of every room will have to be professionally cleaned to eliminate the soot. Cleaning the first through fourth floors could take about ten weeks.

Blue topped tables sitting in a row next to each other. — *The tables sustained a significant amount of smoke damage. Most have been disposed of.*

A mouse has been moved on a blue desk to reveal a light blue outline of the mouse. — *When loose items that were left on the tables were picked up and moved, it was easy to see how much soot coated all surfaces throughout the building.*

Furniture: Water damage

The original Farrell library tables suffered intense water damage that stripped and warped the wood beyond repair. These photos were taken two days after the May 22 fire.

A grey capital has fallen on a water damaged table. — *The Great Room tables sustained a significant amount of water damage.*

Brown wood tables are warped and wavy after severe water damage. — *Both the veneer and the underlying wood was cracked and warped from prolonged exposure to water.*

Book Retrieval

Luckily, not everything was completely unsalvageable. While removing books, the crew and staff were in desperate need of book carts and were able to salvage 30 book carts from the fifth floor.

Progress continues on the book retrieval process. At this point, 30,000 full boxes of books have been removed.

Rows of colorful book carts are lined up against the wall. — *Book carts, fifth floor, June 14.*

Rows of deconstructed cardboard boxes are lined up against the wall from floor to ceiling. — *This is just a small percentage of the boxes that are ready to be assembled and packed with books that will be relocated relocated offsite for cleaning and storage.*

On the right are cleared off white bookshelves and on the left the wall is lined with brown cardboard boxes. — *The entirety of the Music and Art collection has been boxed and moved off of the fourth floor.*

Technology

In the last week, the data center, which had been operating off of generators, was returned to commercial power.

Additionally, the electronics in the building have been assessed, and about 70 percent of what was deemed a loss has been prepared for disposal through the e-waste process.

Dozens of computer screens sit on a concrete floor. — *Damaged computers waiting for the e-waste process.*

Obviously, there are many moving parts to the recovery process. Before we can implement our plans for K-State’s future Hale Library, the damaged portions of the building must cleared out. We are making strides forward every day.

We’d like to extend our deep appreciation to our K-State Libraries and Information Technology coworkers and the Belfor team for everything they’ve accomplished thus far.

What happens to wet books?

Posted on June 22, 2018August 15, 2018 by Rebekah Branch

After the fire it was critical to address the issue of damaged books, especially those that were wet. Hundreds of thousands gallons of water were used in the rescue effort, and that water drained down into different parts of the library like Room 117, which was full of books stored on compact shelving.

Room 117 covered in ceiling tile debris from water damage.

In order to preserve wet books it is best to freeze them. The process of freezing the book turns the water into a solid and stops further damage and mold growth. The majority of wet books were part of the circulating collection housed in Room 117. At this point, 3,357 boxes of wet books have been transported out of Hale Library.

Packing and gathering books is a long process that has been complicated by the fact that library personnel could not enter the building for several days. When they finally could start working, the water damage had left the building with no power.

A row of wet books expands as the water soaks in begins to press against the ends of the shelving unit and form an arc. — *In some places, shelves of wet books started expanding so much that the pressure lifted them off of the shelves.*

Since the books were stored on compact shelves powered by electricity, at first they couldn’t move the shelves to access the books. Compact shelving moves on chain-link rails, which allows for libraries to provide more books in less space.

“We were unable to initially power up the shelving in Hale 117 with battery back-ups, so our wet materials stayed in un-airconditioned, nonclimate-controlled conditions for a number of days,” said Michelle Turvey-Welch, Head of Metadata, Preservation, and Digital Initiatives.

A women in an orange vest and a white hard hat is inspecting the brown compact shelves. — *Michelle Turvey-Welch surveys the compact shelving after the fire*.

Once a professional came in to remove the chains on the rails of the compact shelving units, the process of moving wet books became easier.

There is an established protocol that preservationists use when freeze drying books. First, they need to be packed in a specific way: They must be placed spine down in a box that has been thoroughly lined with heavy plastic. Then, those boxes need to be tightly packed in order to help the books maintain their shape.

A large cardboard box lined with heavy black plastic is ready to be filled with wet books. — *Boxes that the wet books go into are lined with contractor-grade trash bags to prevent moisture from destroying the cardboard during transportation.*

Next the boxes are sent to the freezers where they sit for anywhere from several days to several weeks depending on how wet the book is. Housing and Dining Services at K-State was kind enough to loan us the use of their industrial freezer, which is located in the Pittman Building. The freezer is anywhere between negative ten and negative fifteen degrees.

Boxes are stacked on palettes in a giant industrial freezer. — *Wet books sit in the Housing and Dining Services freezer before they are transported to Ft. Worth, Texas.*

The books that were in the freezer have been loaded into refrigerated trucks and shipped to a Belfor regional technical service center that specializes in water damaged documents and books in Ft. Worth, Texas. The wet books will be put into vacuum freeze dryers that will draw out the rest of the moisture and turn it to water vapor. Then the books will undergo the final restoration and cleaning process.

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