Damage control The librarians, cleaning ladies, facilities management staff and volunteers joined forces. The most urgent task after the flooding was to stop the water and then remove the excess water covering the floors. Then, they dried out the carpets, electrical equipment, and the damaged books. The rest of the work was left to the dehumidifiers. On the day of the flood, the humidity level in the basement reached 78%. It was restored back within its normal range of 48% two weeks after the incident. The library remained open during the restoration process. “It was important for us to keep our facilities open for our students to study and our faculty to do their normal job,” Ivanova-Bell said. The team of librarians managed to save a lot of the damaged books with the help of six dehumidifiers and by spreading the books out on the dried cement and furniture. Of the saved books, 434 are currently piled in a separate room and await special procedures against mold and mildew. A specialist from Conservation Lab International Ltd. visited the library a week after the flood to examine the preserved books and assess which could be repaired. The procedures are currently on hold since the negotiations with the insurance company have not been finalized. 2 AUBG Daily | Fall 2019 Damaged books spread out on the basement floor Photo courtesy of Panitza Library Reasons for the flood Without constant monitoring, there was nobody in the library to signal when the flooding started. Water might have leaked for hours before the librarians entered the building at 7:30 in the morning. According to Director of Operation Todor Todorov, this is the only building on campus that does not have a security guard available 24/7. The water leakage from the pipe was the result of a broken valve but the exact reason for the valve’s malfunction is not clear. “For me, it’s simply an act of God. It’s not human influence,” Todorov said. “Nothing like rise in the pressure of water, nothing like technical influence on the pipes - it just broke itself.” As a response to the faulty valve, the university took preventive measurements. Ivanova-Bell maintains that after the incident all pipes and the water sewage system in the library were changed. However, these measures are to a large degree only protective and not an absolute solution since the health of the library’s inventory is still dependent on other factors. The building’s close proximity to the river is one of them.
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