Sunday, June 15, 2008

We enjoyed our time at our friends – shower, food, and conversation. Back home, I discussed strategy with the Cedar Rapids Public Library Director. She has no idea when she will be allowed back in. We’re in agreement that trying to salvage first floor flood-soaked materials doesn’t make any sense. All the titles are easily replaceable and will cost less to purchase new than to try to clean and restore. The library catalog includes location for each title. Getting an inventory of the items on first floor should be fairly straightforward.   I met with the Czech Slovak Library/Museum staff at the director’s house. Her living room is very ghostly as it is full of male mannequins in Czech and Slovak costumes. These costumes are the hardest to replace so during evacuation they were taken to her house. David mentions that the director, Gail, is fairly new and that during her first couple weeks on board, he went over the disaster response plan with her. I’m very impressed. We discussed disaster response procedures. They already have temporary office space, storage for their dry materials, and a disaster response company on tap. Again, I’m impressed. I suggested that we should coordinate with the African American museum. We could pool resources. Everyone thinks this is a good idea.