 |
A few days after the flood, one soldier returned a borrowed book. At that time, it was the only book in my library. This, however, would not be true for long. With other soldiers returning borrowed books, and books arriving from being ordered prior to the flood, the number of manuals on hand slowly increased. This would remain the case until the thousands of publications ordered after the flood arrived. |  |
During both the clean-up and the renovation processes, books kept arriving. Fortunately, I had salvaged this one shelf which was not destroyed. For a long time it was my only shelf. |
 |
By the end of October my one shelf was full and another, given to me by a friend, was also filled. As of that time, none of the replacement books had arrived. That was soon to change. |
 |
In early November, three mail bags arrived with the first of the ordered replacement books. I knew that within a few days, I would be overwhelmed with publications. Still, I had not received any of the promised shelves. Where could these book be placed? |
 |
Sure enough, hundreds of books came in during the next few days. Each book had to be marked with it's number on the back edge and added to my inventory. Many of the books, too thick to be bound, had to be tied together with string. It was a slow process. The books in this photo still have their plastic wrapping on them. In addition to the ones on the table, those that came in boxes were stacked on the floor along the wall, behind the table. |
 |
A day later, a second table was stacked with newly arrived books. Some are also stacked in a small wooden box thing, which was given to me under the guise of being a shelf. |
 |
In an area of the library opposite of the previous photo, boxes filled with books were stacked. These books, unlike the previously shown ones, have been processed and are only in these boxes because the are no shelves onto which to put them. The stacks of papers on the small table are changes. These have to be posted to the original manuals, but without shelves, the books requiring the changes are too difficult to locate. After running out of boxes, the processed books were put on the desk. |
 |
At the end of November, I finally got the first six shelves. I was hoping to receive the next forty-four shelves within the next couple of weeks, but that did not happen. I was, however, happy to get these six. After moving the desk, boxes and other stuff shown in the preceeding photo, I set the shelves in that same area. I designed these shelves to be very narrow in depth so they would take up as little space as possible. Other than in the depth, they are similar to the shelves I had previously. |
 |
With the presence of book in the shelves, the atmosphere of a library begins to take shape. Putting these books here made only a slight dent in the piles of books in my office. |
 |
Two months later I was told to expect thirty-three more shelves. I actually got fifteen. But, that was fifteen more than I had up until then. I now had a total of twenty-one shelves, almost half of what I required. I asked the folks who delivered the shelves to leave them outside so I could arrange them as I brought them in. |
 |
Now, with the shelves in place, the West Camp Casey MOS Library was beginning to look as it had before the flood. Of course, putting the books numerically in these shelves is a great deal of work. I could not wait to get started. |
 |
This is a view of the office as it looked just prior to putting books on the new shelves. Since the number of shelves was sufficient to hold all of the Technical Manuals (TM's), except those still in boxes, and since the shelves were in the area where the TM's were previously located, I consentrated on shelving the TM's only. Other types of publications were placed in piles around the office and consolidated later. |
 |
At the end of the first day of stocking the shelves, they looked like this. Although progress was initially pretty fast, it slowed considerably as the amount of open space decreased. Many books had to be shifted left or right in order to put others in their correct place. A tedious job, especially on the lower shelves, that took several days to complete. |
 |
The amount of shelved books shown in the preceeding photograph cleared only one table of it's book piles. Another table, plus a computer table, a desk and a seven foot stack at the end of the office still remains. This does not include the over fifty boxes filled with books needing to be shelved. |
 |
It has been months since I have been able to see my rear window. Only the computer table remains to be cleared of books. After relieving the computer table of it's book burden, I moved all the boxes of book into the back room where they are out of sight. The remaining piles of books, other than TM's, are strategically placed where they are non obtrusive. I am so sick of looking at them. |
 |
The shelves are full, except for the bottom row in the front bank of shelves. I used bookends and cardboard painted brown to hold the books on the top of the front row of shelves. By doing this, the bottom row was freed for use when more TM's arrive, a few of which come in each day. I have a two foot wide, six level shelf at the back of the office (out of sight) on which I place the new TM's in numerical order. When full, I will shift the books on the TM shelves to allow the placement of the new books on them. Then I will have only that one tall shelf to refill before, once again, running out of shelf space. I hope to receive more shelves before that happens. |
Go to the Building Renovation Page.
Go Back to the Initial Flood Page.