Fire at Lyon's university library.

["James H. Spohrer" <jspohrer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As you may know, the university library in Lyon recently suffered a terrible catastrophe: a fire caused major damage to its building and collections earlier this month. Barclay Odgen, head of UC Berkeley's Preservation Department, suggested that your listserv might be a good vehicle to disseminate information about the disaster. The address of the University Librarian in Lyon, Charles Micol, is given at the end, and if there are responses they may be sent directly to him. I'd also appreciate it if readers of the Preservation Administration Discussion Group listserv would further forward the message to any potentially interested persons or groups.
Many thanks in advance.
Best,
James H. Spohrer Associate University Librarian University of California=20 Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D A MAJOR LIBRARY DISASTER IN FRANCE
The library shared by the University Lumi=E8re (Lyon 2) and Jean-Moulin (Lyon 3) possessed about 450,000 physical volumes (monographs and periodicals). A large proportion of this collection was destroyed in=20 the fire that started on Saturday, June 12th, a little before 2 :00 a.m.=20 First estimates indicate that about 350,000 were volumes  lost. Included in this group are all of the periodicals from the 19th and the 20th centuries, as well as the basic collections needed for the  programs in humanities=20 and law.
As of now, it is not possible to determine the exact number of volumes that will ultimately be rescued. However, the first rescue operations that took place last Saturday and Sunday (June 12 and 13) have saved the=20 most precious volumes from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, as=20 well as the manuscripts and the incunables (about 150 items). As=20 a whole, about 8,000  early volumes have been recovered by=20 the rescue workers, the personnel of the two universities and the=20 students. This very important result was achieved on Sunday by 5 p.m.
Other collections seem to have survived, but located as they are in areas that have become dangerous, their exact status cannot be easily ascertained. All in all, it is not yet possible to evaluate the number of volumes that can be saved when the situation is completely under control.
This catastrophe decreases in a significant manner the library=20 materials at the disposal of Lyon students and while various measures are being implemented to ensure the preservation of what has been rescued.=20 Various scenarios are being studied and they all aim at rebuilding the collections=20 which are needed  for teaching and research in the shortest possible time.
In addressing this message to you, we seek advice and perhaps even a bit of help. Allow us to outline our main areas of concerns.
1. If you have any practical library  experience in recovering from such a fire, please share your experiences ; if you know of good documents that spell out useful tactics and strategies to recover as gracefully and efficiently as possible from similar catastrophes,=20 please point them out to us
2. We envision acquiring various collections in microfilm or microfiche formats so as to convert them quickly to a browsable format, either in limited, on-site, intranets or otherwise, depending on the copyright situation encountered in eache case. Do you think this is a good idea?
3. More generally, do you think that relying upon a strategy of digitization to recover from this fire makes sense? Does it make sense to plan this recovery action within the wider plan of establishing a brand new, digital, library? In other words, does it make sense to use the crisis to push a resolutely modern and possibly pioneering digital library project. Or does it make nore sense, more humbly, to look for the lost volumes and replace them as far as is possible, according to various rules of priorities.
4. Assuming you have control or ownership of digitized materials which may be of potential interest, may we envision negotiating the purchase of or=20 access to these resources?
5. If there are any obvious steps that we should take and that seems to be missing here, would you be so kind as to point them to us.
With many thanks for your time and kind advice, please accept our most heartfelt regards.
Charles Micol Directeur de la Bibliotheque Universitaire
e-mail : Charles.Micol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx