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Date: | Thu, 5 Mar 2009 23:16:54 +0100 |
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At the time it was opened (early 1970s?), it was supposed to be the world's
most modern archive; I'm vaguely hoping they've managed to digitize a lot;
also hoping a lot of stuff will be in steel storage vaults, anyway, but...
at least they have had some time to plan, have some experience from the big
fire in that Baroque library 2-3 years ago (wet stuff has to be kept frozen
until it gets a chance to be restored, etc.)
They have been pumping concrete into some kind of hollow spaces to try to
shore things up to the extent that they can bring in some cranes to aid in
and/or allow rescue work (trying to find those two guys who are still
missing). There are also a lot of big blue pipes threading their way around
downtown, from having to pump out groundwater; from what I've seen, some of
these seem to have fallen into the pit, too.
They've also managed to get plastic sheeting over most of the site, so that
should keep most of the rain off (light rain today, forecast for worse
tomorrow)
-----Original Message-----
No doubt some will be recovered but many documents are very fragile e.g
on medieval parchment or old fragile paper and won't survive violent
compression. They may also have been damaged by water as it will have
taken awhile to cut off the building's water supply- plus a a major
problem with dust. I also imagine much clearance will need heavy
machiney to shift reinforced steel girders etc.I remember using 19th
century tithe maps in Uk national Archives Kew in the 1980s and needing
a a pan and bush to clear up the fragments. They are now digitised
thankfully. Lets just hope much is recoverable and there is no heavy
rainfall in the next few days. Conservation of what is recovered will
probably take decades and many millions of euros.
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