MOVING PAST MUD AND MASKS: ADVANCING THROUGH CRISES by Regan Brumagen If you had been in Corning, New York, on June 23, 1972, you would have witnessed a shocking moment in the history of The Corning Museum of Glass: Hurricane Agnes caused massive flooding that submerged much of the Museum and Rakow Research Library collections. The water shattered glass objects and left books, drawings, photos, and magazines caked in mud. The Museum closed for 39 days. When you look at pictures from “The Flood,” as locals refer to it, it’s astonishing that the Museum was able to re-open to the public that quickly. Next year will be the 50th anniversary of The Flood and I’m struck by how an event that brought such hardship also led us to re-think our practices and re-focus on our priorities. The Flood of ’72 prompted many changes, such as a greatly improved disaster recovery program, new science in paper conservation, and, for The Rakow Library, a move to leveraging technology to improve preservation and access to our collections. It was after the disaster that staff began a rigorous program of microfilming our unique collections, such as rare books and trade catalogs. Okay, if you’ve ever used microfilm, you know it’s a lot clunkier than looking at a digitized book on Google, but at the time, it allowed library staff to send our materials to people around the world who otherwise would have needed to travel to Corning for the same information. Microfilm was a big deal then---it even had its own celebration week (September 24-30 was National Microfilm Week in 1972.) Did you know that the precursor to New Glass Review, entitled Contemporary Glass, was published on microfiche only? During the Agnes recovery process, the Museum committed to another new service that changed library access for good. In 1975, our institution joined the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), a collaborative project to collect the holdings GASNEWS
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Left: Read the remarkable story of the flood and recovery in Museum Under Water: https://www.cmog.org/ Right: Contemporary Glass 1977 morphed into New Glass Review after three years of being published on microfiche. Photo Credit: The Corning Museum of Glass
of libraries worldwide in order to more efficiently catalog and share resources among institutions. We were the first museum library in the United States to join this “catalog of library catalogs.” Today, OCLC is an essential part of almost every library’s process for interlibrary loan. But you can use it, too. Want to find out which libraries have copies of Antonio Neri’s The Art of Glass? Go to https://worldcat.org. Not only can you see which libraries around the world have the publications you want, but you can ask your local library to borrow a copy on your behalf.
I’ve been thinking of The Library’s postflood efforts to preserve our collections and improve accessibility to them in relation to our activities this past year. In March 2020, our Museum and Library temporarily closed again, as the world struggled to slow the spread of Covid-19. During this closure, we didn’t undertake a massive reformatting project (like the amazing microfilm), but we did take the opportunity to explore services that would help connect our communities with our staff and collections during a period of global and individual isolation. Allie Shanafelter, Reference Librarian, monitoring Chat at the Rakow Library. Photo credit: The Corning Museum of Glass
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