The Western Reserve Historical Society houses about 74,000 linear feet of archival material in its library – this priceless collection was threatened by a fire that scorched the building’s basement in Sept. 2023.
Quick action from the Cleveland Fire Department ensured the archive’s safety, notes interim library director Ann Sindelar. After an 18-month restoration of the library and its irreplaceable collection, WRHS will fully reopen to researchers on April 3.
“Our focus is to resume our regular hours of operation,” says Sindelar. “We’ve had people waiting a long time. They look at the collection as not only a great resource, they also look at the library as a meeting space.”
Upon re-opening, the library will be available from 10 a.m. to3 p.m. on Thursdays through Saturdays. Its diverse collection is utilized by researchers, filmmakers, students, nonprofits, and individuals eager to delve into regional history. Topics such as genealogy, religion, politics, and sports are immortalized in papers, photographs, maps, and rare books.
This chronicle was in danger when a fire caused by spilled hydraulic oil in an elevator room – per an investigation by the Cleveland Fire Department – sent smoke and soot billowing throughout the facility. Although the collection remained mostly unscathed, 129 water-damaged boxes were transported to Texas for preservation via freeze-drying.
“CFD took special care not to blast through our collection with fire hoses,” Sindelar says. “The issue was soot damage and smoke that permeated the whole building and landed on everything.”
Sindelar also praises staff members for their calm demeanor that first hectic day, when nobody knew the extent of the damage and the building still reeked of smoke.
“It’s like you can’t believe what’s happening, but you do what you need to protect the collection and move forward,” says Sindelar.
Over the next year-and-a-half, library officials collaborated with preservation and disaster restoration services to clean the building and rebuild library collections. The entire archive was moved off-site, a daunting task that encompassed a detailed shelf and collections inventory.
“We met every day to review each floor, and triaged collections for surface cleaning of soot,” says Sindelar. “Everything was moved to a remote processing center, where each item was cleaned and re-boxed.”
Meticulous cataloguing allowed WRHS to respond to ongoing requests for research assistance – it was a matter of tracking down material and sending it to a temporary study space in the Bingham-Hanna mansion on campus.
Exciting new or ongoing projects are a crucial aspect of the library’s return to normalcy. WRHS is currently providing photos to the Tiffany jewelry company for an upcoming exhibit in China. Closer to home, archivists are digitizing the correspondence, sermons and writings of prominent Cleveland rabbi Abba Hillel Silver. Efforts are also being made to digitize newspaper clippings, photographs and papers pertaining to the work of Charles Waddell Chesnutt, a local court reporter and novelist.
Ultimately, WRHS is aiming to re-harness the momentum it enjoyed before the 2023 fire. Two years prior, in 2021, the nonprofit completed a $3 million renovation of its library reading room and administrative offices. Awards from the American Library Association and the Commercial Interior Design Association, meanwhile, honored the space for its “extraordinary” interior architecture.
This spring, the WRHS library will finally resume its vital function as a center for research, preservation and learning, a prospect that greatly pleases Sindelar.
“Our whole team is thrilled to see researchers coming in – we’ve already scheduled researchers from all over the country excited to get back in and look at our collection,” Sindelar says. “Or even people from the community who come in and are curious about their family history. All of this is what we are really here to do.”
For more details on the library’s reopening and how to visit, go to the WRHS Library website.
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