Case Study

Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University. Rebuilding Collection After Katrina

On Monday, August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the gulf coast of the United States, bringing death and destruction as one of the five deadliest hurricanes in United States history. The most severe loss of life and property damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, which flooded as floodwalls collapsed at key interior points in the city’s drainage canals, inundating 80% of the city and many areas of neighboring parishes. Almost 2,000 people lost their lives in Hurricane Katrina and the destruction has been estimated in the billions of dollars in damage, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

Among the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, the basement of Tulane University’s Howard-Tilton Memorial Library - an area about the size of a football field - was flooded with about eight feet of water. The basement housed a music library and a very large collection of government documents, newspapers, and microforms. In addition to the main library, Jones Hall, which houses the library’s Special Collections, received about four feet of water.

In those initial days after Katrina, both of Tulane’s damaged buildings became ticking time bombs for its collections. The accumulation of water in the basement produced incredible amounts of humidity while the loss of power shut off any circulating air. With it being summer in New Orleans at the time, the interior temperature in these closed-off structures quickly climbed to dangerous levels as toxic mold started to take over.

As part of the university's campus-wide emergency plan, an international disaster management company, Belfor, responded to the scene almost immediately with a barrage of huge generators and specialized equipment. These first responders installed in both buildings an elaborate series of giant tubes to pump dry air throughout each floor in danger. Water was quickly removed and the battle against humidity and mold began.

Throughout the recovery process, Tulane was able to salvage thousands of materials from the basement of the Howard-Tilton and Jones Hall. In summary, much was lost during Katrina, but the library has been able to restore more from these basement collections than it initially appeared in those dreadful first few days and weeks immediately after the hurricane. Today, the upper floors and the collections in both of Tulane’s library buildings are fine and functional, as mold was miraculously kept away from them.

In February of 2008, Library Associates Companies (LAC) started a multi-year project to bring these restored materials back into Tulane’s general collection. LAC came to understand that in the wake of the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, the Tulane libraries had approximately 190,000 items that had been physically restored and required integration back into Tulane’s collection. LAC decided the best approach was to divide the work into two teams, headed by a single Project Manager, with one led by a librarian to work with the cataloged material and the other led by a librarian/archivist to primarily handle the archival materials.


LAC Group began in 1986 as Library Associates Companies (LAC) and has grown into a unique and multifaceted professional services firm, providing disciplined and innovative library, legal, information and research staffing, consulting, project management and asset management services. www.LAC-Group.com