museums

September 2, 2005 2:11 PM

Early reports on cultural institutions in Katrina's path. From The American Association of Museums.
posted by R. Mutt (12 comments total)

Whatever happened to the dolphins that were in the Gulfport pool?
posted by geoff. at 2:14 PM on September 2, 2005

"Marine Life Oceanarium (as of 8-31). The Baltimore Sun reports there is an empty space where the Gulfport aquarium used to be."
posted by billysumday at 2:20 PM on September 2, 2005

The American Library Association has some information about affected libraries here.
posted by box at 2:26 PM on September 2, 2005

The Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species (ACRES) lost one whooping crane but the remaining animals at the facility are fine. The area has not been flooded but there are some leaks at the Research Center. Four animal keepers were flown in by helicopter. At present, they do not need food or water.

Hm. Too bad the people in the convention center didn't go to the Zoo instead.
posted by Miko at 2:30 PM on September 2, 2005

The Jazz archives at Tulane University are all on the first floor.

Sad.
posted by zaelic at 2:40 PM on September 2, 2005

Yeah, it really is sad. I'm being snarky about the resources at the zoo, but I'm seriously going to grieve for the certain cultural losses once the people are stabilized. I posted at length about it on my blog yesterday. The musical history, the archives, the documentary evidence going back 400 years...it's a major, major loss for the United States. Cutting out a vital cultural organ.
posted by Miko at 2:43 PM on September 2, 2005

Where is the Gulfport Aquarium? Somthing Zen about that.
posted by stbalbach at 3:20 PM on September 2, 2005

Thanks for posting this, I've been hunting around and looking at different sites to see what was going on and thinking about collecting stuff for a post, glad to see someone has done it.

I noticed the Louisiana State Archives still has a notice on their page about 2004 Archives Week activities, including a program on "Disaster Planning, Vital Records and Unforeseen Disasters."

I've had a little experience with disaster recovery in an Archives (busted air conditioning unit dumping water on paper records) and good planning and having the necessary tools on hand is essential.

That first link to the Alabama Historical Commission was to a two-page Firefox-freezing-up PDF document.
posted by marxchivist at 3:20 PM on September 2, 2005

The Society of Southwest Archivists also has a page going where people can post this type of info.
posted by marxchivist at 3:28 PM on September 2, 2005

geoff. according to the humane society, those swimming pool dolphins have already been relocated to florida.
posted by crush-onastick at 3:49 PM on September 2, 2005

Thanks for this post, R.Mutt - I appreciate it. Like Maxarchivist, I'd have gone searching for some of this info.
posted by madamjujujive at 4:57 PM on September 2, 2005

The archivists need a giant frost free refridgerater. A
few weeks is there and wet things dry out. I'll donate the
use of mine, there's never anything in there anyway.
(I am a librarian)
posted by bat at 9:12 PM on September 2, 2005