“Nor Any Drop to Drink”: New Orleans Libraries in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

SUMMARY Hurricane Katrina's winds and flood waters impacted nearly every library in the New Orleans metropolitan area. The author provides a brief commentary on the extent of damage at the academic libraries before describing in detail the destruction and recovery of the library at Xavier University. The article offers a series of questions that librarians in flood-prone areas might ask in order to prepare themselves and their staffs for the possibility of a major flood and its consequences.