We’re back open to our normal hours on Wednesday, December 5. (With a few exceptions upcoming. See our main website page for details on those.)
But we’re not quite cleaned up from the earthquake quite yet. Here’s our current status:
Most archival collections are available for use but because the majority of the boxes that deshelved themselves during the quake are in the aisle that has our most frequently used collections, we may not be able to provide access to all collections immediately. Many collections in that aisle stayed in place, but since the floor is covered in boxes and documents, we are unable to reach them. We ask that if you are planning to come to the Archives to do research, contact us in advance of your visit to see if the materials you need will be accessible for your visit. We thank you for your patience as we start to clean up those boxes that did not stay shelved: getting this fixed and reshelved is a priority for us at this time.
The Rare Books room has similar issues. While the small and regular sized Rare Books are on compact shelving and did just fine through the quake, many of the oversize Rare and the APU masters theses are no longer on shelves. They do not seem to have suffered any damage but because we don’t want to cause more damage to them by wading through them to get to the ones still on shelves, access to these items may be delayed for awhile. Like with the archival collections, please contact us in advance of a visit to make sure the volume you want will be accessible to you.
Our research room is just fine, our offices less so, but we’re ready to resume access!
Thanks to all of you who have reached out to volunteer to help us clean. Unfortunately because the clean-up needs to happen in spaces that are not public spaces, we are unable to accommodate volunteers who are not currently employees of the Consortium Library. While it’s probably pretty safe, we just can’t take any chances that any of you might get hurt while dealing with these materials. Our Risk Management types would never forgive us and more importantly, we’d never forgive ourselves either.
We thank you for your patience and support as we continue on with clean-up. Here’s to some sunny days and lessening aftershocks. May you keep safe and happy and warm.