Volume 11, Number 6
Aug 1987

Follow-up on Los Angeles Library Fire

At the June MA meeting in San Francisco, the Los Angeles Public Library had an exhibit table full of literature and items for sale in their "Save the Books" campaign. They hope to raise $10 million to replace the books lost in the April 1986 fire, the largest library fire in U.S. history (AN June 1986, p. 33). You could buy aprons, leather bookmarks, caps and so on (catalogs are available from Save the Books, P.O. Box 71439, Los Angeles, CA 90071); pick up a 40-page account of the fire and its aftermath, by the volunteers, librarians and readers involved, in the March-June issue of the Communicator (published by the Librarians' Guild, P0 Box 71568, Los Angeles, CA 90071); and learn the present status of the recovery effort from an information sheet. Although almost $9 million has been raised, the information sheet shows little progress of other sorts during the months since the fire:

• Building is closed to the public and unable to offer any public service
• 400,000 books still stored in the building
• 600,000 books with varying degrees of smoke damage stored in local warehouse
• 700,000 water-damaged books stored in two freezer locations in Los Angeles
  20,000 frozen books processed by McDonnell Douglas in their vacuum chamber
  200,000 books in off-site depository the Library maintained before the fire
• Library staff and collection to relocate to former down town Bullock's store at Seventh and Broadway during expansion and renovation of Central Library
• Temporary Central Library scheduled to reopen to public in early 1988
• Expanded and rehabilitated building to reopen in 1991.