the story and activity, each student wasallowed to select a book from the book-mobile. The bookmobile was a welcomesight for both students and teachers.In the meantime, the media staff wasbusy cataloging thousands of donatedbooks. Thanks to the generosity of thelocal cable television company, thePrinceville media center received a newPentium computer appropriate for use asa circulation station. The media automa-tion program was quickly installed. Sinceelectronic records were not available forthe donated titles, it was necessary to seekcataloging information from severalsources. Books that contained cataloging-in-publication data were addressed first. Alesson in original cataloguing from themedia supervisor allowed the staff to be-gin this monumental task. Later, a multi-purpose MARC record database was pur-chased, which allowed this work to pro-ceed at a much faster pace. In addition,MARC record data was located throughthe use of SUNLINK, the Florida unioncatalog of school library holdings. Over3,500 books were cataloged using thesemethods.In late February, the principal sus-pended library classes for one week so thatthe media staff could finish the task ofcataloging, labeling, and shelving the col-lection. Thanks to the efforts of parentvolunteers, the media center collectionwas ready for circulation on March 1. Stu-dents, teachers, and parents were thrilledto have checkout available once again.The students of Princeville Montessoriwere delighted with their collection of newbooks. Donated books and flood replace-ment orders continued to arrive and wereincorporated in the collection as quicklyas possible. By the end of April 2000, thenumber of volumes in the collectiontopped 4000. Unfortunately, students willnot have access to electronic informationresources on a school local area networkuntil a new facility is complete.The school media coordinators havelearned much from these experiences,and the learning process will undoubt-edly continue until we succeed in estab-lishing new, fully-functioning mediacenters. The first and most importantlesson is that we must be ever vigilantand alert to the possibility of disasterstriking, whether from water, fire, wind,or other destructive forces. While it isimpossible to prepare a contingencyplan for every conceivable calamity, aplan should be in place that outlines thesteps to be followed in reestablishingmedia services in our schools followingsubstantial losses.First and foremost, the development66 " Fall 2000of this plan should emphasize the require-ment to take a long, hard look at whatneeds to be accomplished before any ac-tion is taken. Decisions made precipi-tously can cause additional problems inthe future. The rebuilding and restockingplan that is developed must be guided bycurrent instructional priorities and notbased on ideas or instructional practicesthat were prevalent years earlier. Deci-sions to order or purchase new equip-ment and materials must be based on thecurrent and anticipated new environ-ment or facility, the situation, availablespace, and the personnel. In essence,three plans must be developed " short-term for immediate needs to begin in-struction, mid-term for resources whilestill within the temporary campus, andlong-term for total collection replacementin the development of a permanent facil-ity. It is vital that the media coordinator,the media supervisor, or someone experi-enced and skilled in media services andoperations is closely involved in the or-dering of materials and equipment. As aresult of orders placed by central officepersonnel who lacked knowledge of auto-mation systems and current media centerprocedures and practices, many hourshad to be spent communicating changesto vendors on barcode symbology andnumber sequences.Our experience has taught us thatmedia coordinators must develop andmaintain separate inventories of all ma-terials and equipment without relianceon the school system fixed asset inven-tory list. Everything owned by the mediacenter should be entered into the elec-tronic catalog, and both digital and printrecords must be kept in the school build-ing and off site, as well. In addition, theelectronic record for each item must havea purchase price listed. The automationsystemTs collection value tool affixes anaverage price to all materials that do nothave a price listed in the record; however,this average price is usually outdated, con-sidering the current costs of materials andequipment.The last major lesson that welearned is that we, as media personnel,must communicate well with all of ourcommunities " teachers, administra-tors, parents, potential donors, and ven-dors. Specific needs should be listed onthe school system Web site, and peoplewho desire to make donations should beencouraged to call to discuss the situa-tion with school and system level per-sonnel. We should not be meek or reti-cent in requesting replacements fromvendors, particularly in the area of digi-tal media or computer applications. Inmost cases, we purchase the rights tocontent and actual applications ratherthan the physical media. Do not hesitateto request retrospective conversion ma-terial or other data from the vendorTsarchives, if needed and still available. Inour case, this proved very helpful in de-termining collection value after onemedia coordinator inadvertently left abriefcase with the collection data disksin the media center in her haste to leave.What will the future bring to the twoflooded school media centers in Edge-combe County? Both Pattillo A+ Elemen-tary School and Princeville MontessoriSchool will enjoy newly-constructed fa-cilities featuring spacious, well-ap-pointed media centers with up-to-datematerials and equipment. The media co-ordinators will feel confident that theirinput into the planning and design pro-cess was accurately based on current me-dia program requirements and practices,solid collection development needs, andwell-documented student and facultyusage patterns. Audiovisual equipment,computers and peripherals, and mediacenter materials in all formats will benew and current, obviating the need forlarge expenditures to update books andequipment for a number of years. Com-puter platforms will be standardized,eliminating a problem that has plaguedboth schools in the recent past. Studentswill have access to a wide variety of ma-terials, in both print and electronic for-mats, to satisfy their information needsand leisure reading pursuits, and teach-ers will have access to contemporary in-structional and supplementary materialsto use in the curriculum.Most important, however, is that thejoy of teaching and learning in a brand-new, well-stocked facility be weighedagainst the human factor " the toll thatthis disaster had on the students, schoolpersonnel, their families, and members ofthe community. While the education ofour students will continue unimpeded,the memory of this disaster will linger fora long time. :Just as the water seeped up from theearth, so we had to rebuild our media pro-grams from the bottom up. Nevertheless,we believe that we were successful in ourrebuilding efforts because we kept theneeds of students, teachers, and the cur-riculum uppermost in mind. It is hopedthat the collaboration that evolved be-tween media coordinators and teacherswill continue so that wise decisions willcontinue to be made to acquire the verybest in instructional and media centermaterials for our students, our primaryclients.North Carolina Libraries