Delayed Katrina Effect: Library Closes Outside New Orleans

-- Library Journal, 3/8/2007

The Madisonville Branch of the St. Tammany Parish Public Library outside of New Orleans has been closed since February 5, reports the New Orleans Times-Picayune, after a consultant called the 101-year-old building unsafe. The 2000- square-foot building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was a bar, a bank, and a hospital before being converted to a library in 1987. While library officials did make minor renovations after the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, the building remains damaged and is too small and too old to serve as a library, the consultant said. Last year, parish (i.e., county) residents voted down a proposed millage that would have brought $152 million over 20 years to fund renovations at two libraries and construction of 11 new libraries. While the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimated that the library would need at least $500,000 to repair storm damage and bring the building to code, the agency offered only about one-third of that, a library official said. Now the library board is considering its options, including building a temporary library.