[StBernard] Libraries get Gates help

[Westley Annis]

By J.R. WELSH


jrwelsh at sunherald.com

GULFPORT - The director of the Harrison County Library System has been asked
to participate in efforts by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help
hurricane-battered libraries on the Gulf Coast recover and rebuild.
 
Director Robert Lipscomb has been meeting with Gates Foundation officials to
lay out recovery needs of the Harrison County system, post-Hurricane
Katrina. The hurricane destroyed the main library and headquarters in
Gulfport and also ravaged central libraries in Biloxi, Pass Christian and
D'Iberville.
 
Officials said the Biloxi and Pass Christian libraries can eventually be
rebuilt and the D'Iberville facility is already nearing completion of
repairs. The 48,000-square-foot Gulfport library on the beachfront was lost.
 
Lipscomb will travel to Atlanta on Oct. 18 to serve on a committee formed to
devise disbursement plans for millions of dollars the Gates Foundation is
giving to Gulf Coast libraries. "We will try and map out a strategy on how
this money will go out to all our Coast libraries," Lipscomb said.
 
Lipscomb is the only library director from the Mississippi Coast to attend
the Atlanta meetings, which will also include Sharman Smith, executive
director of the Mississippi Library Commission in Jackson.
 
The Gates Foundation is expected to distribute about $12.2 million for what
it calls the Gulf Coast Libraries Project. The project is a multiyear
initiative to help re-establish public libraries and public access to
computer services in Mississippi and Louisiana communities that fell victim
to hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
 
Services funded by the foundation will be varied. Money passed on to local
libraries may be used for purposes such as temporary library facilities,
computers and equipment, and planning costs and architect fees to replace
destroyed libraries.
"I don't have figures yet on how much of this money Harrison County will
receive, but I'm sure we'll get a chunk," Lipscomb said. "We qualify right
now for temporary library locations they may pay for."
 
He said that the Gates Foundation will be providing a number of laptop
computers and wireless Internet connections for Harrison County libraries,
and is expected to furnish a modular building in Biloxi while that city's
main library is being rebuilt. The Biloxi library was swamped by 8 feet of
water and lost 40,000 items.
 
Collectively, Harrison County public libraries lost more than $6 million in
contents to Katrina. The system's 74-person staff has been whittled down to
43 employees, but Lipscomb said most of its professional librarians have
returned.