Historical Cases of Disruptive Events in University Libraries

Over the weekend a storm hit Canberra in Australia, resulting in the closure of the Australian National University Acton Campus, including their library. Regular followers will know my research focus in my Master’s degree in Emergency Management at Charles Sturt University has been investigating the impacts of disruptive events on university libraries.

There are many case studies globally of a variety of disruptive events that have affected university libraries. Mold at the University of Iowa (2002) destroyed numerous rare books. Hurricane Katrina (2005) affected numerous university libraries with reports of evacuee’s reportedly damaging University libraries as they sheltered. The University of Tulane library had losses totalling over $30 million and the experiences are well documented. Earthquakes have caused multiple case studies including the Imperial University Library (1923); California State University library (1994); Stamford University (1981) and the University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (2005). The 2004 tsunami affected the Madras University Library and the Aceh Documentation and Information Centre, known for its collection of rare books and manuscripts, was destroyed.

Civil unrest and war have affected them also. The burning of the Library of Alexandria, often marked as the first Library of the World is a famous historical example, and in WWII, numerous libraries were lost and including over 200,000 books alone in the National University of Tsing Hua in Peking. The Central University library in Bucharest (1989) was destroyed during the Romanian Revolution. The University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina was destroyed during the siege of Sarajevo (1992). Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) destroyed 8,000 books and 10,000 manuscripts as they looted and ransacked the library at the University of Mosul (2014).

Fire has also impacted on university libraries such as Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences (2015) in Moscow; the Dalhousie University Law Library (1985) in Canada and the University of Edinburgh Artificial Intelligence Library (2002). Libraries can also be affected by public disorder or protests. Universities can face protesters, especially if involved in controversial issues, libraries may find themselves unwillingly involved, as demonstrated in 2016 when students at University of Sydney protested against the Federal Education Minister speaking at the Fisher library and riot police were called in (Burke, 2016). Threats to libraries include theft. In the 1980’s in USA, James Shinn stole over $1 million worth of books from university libraries, followed by Stephen Blumberg in the 1990’s, whose haul of rare books was worth over $5 million.

The CAVAL (2003) survey on disaster response included disruptive examples cited by Australian university libraries over a 6 year period (1997-2003). Examples cited include a fire hose which burst, affecting the Rare Book room; power failure across multiple sites due a large scale bushfire; the loss of a complete library in a bushfire; a sewage spill; small fire and flooding caused by workmen which disrupted services and multiple examples of storm damage caused by hail which resulted in the university having to close libraries for a period of time and limiting services.

In South Australia, the Barr Smith Library at the University of Adelaide suffered a major flood in March 2005 when construction works damaged a fire main on North Terrace Campus. Beaumont (2008) in “The Water Incident” stated that over 200,000 litres of water was released, 1.200 sq.m of internal space was damaged, 40 tonnes of mud affected the library, the IT server room was damaged and the incident closed the University for 3 days. There was potential for the flood to close the University for a semester, with projected losses of $90 million in lost revenue.

References

Beaumont, S. (2008). The Water Incident. Presentation, State Library, South Australia.

CAVAL. (2003). DISASTER RESPONSE PLANS SURVEY. Melbourne: CAVAL. Retrieved from http://www.caval.edu.au/assets/files/CRMG/RMG_TOR06.pdf

Burke, L. (2016). The Real Fight Behind Uni of Sydney student protests. News.Com.Au. Retrieved from http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/careers/the-real-fight-behind-the-violent-sydney-university-student-protests/news-story/58b8b177088e674adf28b336643c52f6