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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, January 11, 2005

UH reopens Hamilton Library

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

Yesterday's start of the spring semester was a blessing for the University of Hawai'i's Manoa campus after a disastrous fall semester that began with a scramble to add enough classes for sky-rocketing enrollments only to be topped off by a devastating flood.

Hamilton Library was adorned with balloons as it celebrated its reopening yesterday.

Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

The weather was warm, the skies were blue, one section of Hamilton Library was open — with computers, carrels and stacks — and the administration had added 150 classes to make 3,500 additional seats available for students.

Signs of the flood cleanup were few — though large generators powering the Biomedical Sciences building and pumping dehumidified air into Hamilton are still in evidence.

"We're in good shape," said Joseph O'Mealy, dean of the College of Languages, Linguistics and Literature, which faced shortages in the fall. "A lot of extra thought went into the spring (semester) and Smatresk (Neal Smatresk, vice chancellor for academic affairs) has been helpful in finding out how the projections hold up and giving us extra help. We planned it pretty well. In fact we canceled a few under-enrolled classes."

Meanwhile, conservators and preservation consultants from Utah, California and New Zealand began arriving yesterday to start looking at the best way to take damaged library materials out of their deep freeze and begin trying to save and restore them — one document at a time. Half of the damaged maps from the Hamilton basement have been shipped to the recovery company Belfor USA in Fort Worth, Texas. The rest will be done here.

"They (the documents) have basically been in hibernation for the past two months," said Lynn Ann Davis, head of the library's Preservation Department, referring to freezer containers brought in to store damaged documents. "It continues to be an uphill battle."

Though there were fewer students than usual in the long stacks in Hamilton yesterday, it was almost as if nothing had ever been amiss.

A couple of students were even asleep in their carrels and Jay Kang, a 25-year-old senior in computer science, was settling down for several hours on his computer next to a window on the first floor. Just like before.

"I'm really happy I'm back here," said Kang, who depends on Hamilton because it's close to his classes and his bus line. "Usually ... I spend four to five hours a day here. It's perfect for me."

Students had found ways to cope during the two months the library was closed, including using the Internet for research, buying books they needed or retraining themselves to use Sinclair Library. But nothing was quite as good as being able to spread out in the quiet of a table in Hamilton.

"You kind of took it for granted when it was here," said 19-year-old sophomore Dahltin Williams. "I got by OK," he said, "but I couldn't go as in-depth as I like. It's sometimes nice to work at home, but you get distracted. You think 'I can play a video game or watch TV.' Here I have to get things done before I leave."

But Tomoko Suzuki, a 25-year-old graduate student from Japan, wasn't taking any chances she would lose the opportunity again to leaf through the texts she needs for work on her master's degree. Yesterday she was photocopying 60 or more pages from a textbook called "Forest Science" for a paper in natural resources and environmental management.

"I was looking at the Internet and I couldn't get these books or old periodicals," said Suzuki.

"I need to know about botany and forestry to measure leaf area index," she explained. "I'm comparing invasive and native species and how they are different in the Makaha area."

And 18-year-old freshman Katie Moore, a transplant from Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., said she had trouble doing the research she needed for her science courses when Hamilton was shut. "Internet use is not reliable," said Moore, who started busing to the state library in Manoa for other resources. "I realized how much fake information is out there."

Smatresk was pleased with yesterday's spring semester opening, but still poised to adjust class schedules later in the week if needs change. "We'll have some hard numbers (on enrollment) by the end of the week, but it looks like we hit it right," he said. "Things are looking really good."