UD librarians help New Orleans libraries recover

Carol Rudisell, (front row kneeling, second from right) a UD reference department librarian, with other ALA members who volunteered to help out at Southern University in New Orleans.

9:49 a.m., Aug. 24, 2006--Five University of Delaware librarians worked as volunteers in New Orleans this summer assisting in recovery activities for Hurricane Katrina-damaged libraries while attending the American Library Association's (ALA) annual conference there.

ALA offered its members attending the June 23-25 conference in New Orleans opportunities to help the libraries there by participating in various library-rebuilding projects.

Nancy Nelson (center), head librarian of the access services department at UD, helps install shelving and then reshelve the collection at Benjamin Franklin High School in New Orleans.

Library associates who volunteered included:

M. Dina Giambi, assistant director for library technical services, who assisted in the set up and management of the West Bank Regional Library and helped with the library's book sale. The first two days of the book sale generated $1,000 for the library. Team members also shifted parts of the collection, prepared items for circulation and picked up trash around the library;
David Langenberg, associate librarian in the collection development department, joined a volunteer team project at the Algiers Branch of the New Orleans Public Library. The Algiers Branch is being used as a storage place for thousands of books sent to the New Orleans Public Library by citizens all over the United States. A volunteer team unpacked hundreds of boxes of donated books and did “triage” work--the best books were boxed for Better World Books, the middling tier of books were boxed for the ALA/FEMA, and the books in poorest condition were boxed for donation to thrift stores;
Nancy Nelson, head of the access services department, helped install shelving and then reshelve the collection at Benjamin Franklin High School. During Katrina, the school was flooded and the library, located on the first floor, took on 3 feet of water;
Carol A. Rudisell, librarian in the reference department, participated in a volunteer project at Southern University at New Orleans sifting through boxes of donated books to identify titles for priority processing. That campus has been functioning out of “FEMA trailers.” Its library was destroyed in the hurricane; and
William Simpson, senior assistant librarian in the reference department, accompanied ALA's science and technology section on a field trip to the hardest hit areas of New Orleans to investigate the science behind the disaster and observe the recovery efforts.

ALA made news shortly after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita when it refused to move its annual conference out of New Orleans. Instead, the organization arranged for its members to perform community service work as part of “Librarians Build Communities! Volunteer Opportunities in New Orleans.”

ALA annual conference participants were notified in advance of assistance projects that would be available during the conference

Keith Michaels Fiels, ALA executive director, sent Susan Brynteson, director of UD Libraries, a letter thanking her for UD's participation. “The commitment of your library and staff to help rebuild libraries and the communities in and around New Orleans was truly admirable,” he wrote.

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