June 13, 2025 • 60 mins
First broadcast June 13, 2025.
Playlist here, transcript at https://hdl.handle.net/1853/77967
"It was quite a ride, and we're getting back on it."
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(00:01):
(SINGING) Gloom,despair, and agony on me
Deep dark depression,excessive misery
If it weren't for bad luck,I'd have no luck at all
Oh, gloom, despair,and agony on me.
CHARLIE BENNETT (00:44):
You are listening to WREK Atlanta.
And this is Hee-Haw.
No, this is Lost in theStacks, the research library
rock and roll radio show.
I'm Charlie Bennett inthe studio with everybody,
Fred, Alex, Marlee, and Cody.
Each week on Lost in theStacks, we pick a theme
and then use it to create amix of music and library talk.
(01:05):
Whichever you tune infor, we hope you dig it.
ALEX MCGEE (01:08):
Our show today is called more bad luck
and trouble.
As we broadcast, it is June13, 2025, and it's a Friday.
MARLEE GIVENS (01:16):
And sometimes, when Friday the 13th rolls
around, we devote a show to oneof the many misfortunes that
befall libraries, archives,and the world of information.
FRED RASCOE (01:25):
It's already giving me the heebie jeebies.
ALEX MCGEE (01:27):
I know.
And what's worse,we are going to talk
about something that happenedright here at Georgia Tech
library last year.
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:33):
It was quite the ride,
and we decided toget back on it.
MARLEE GIVENS (01:36):
That's right.
Today, we're going to relive anevent that befell the Georgia
Tech Library, the campus widechilled water outage, which
led to risingtemperatures and even more
alarming for ourlibrarians and archivists,
rising humidity levels.
So gather round as we retellthis true story in all
its gory detail and how itunfolded on the ground for us
(01:59):
in the library.
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:00):
I don't if I want to do this now.
I'm having a little bit--
ALEX MCGEE (02:03):
We've come too far.
You can't turn around now.
FRED RASCOE (02:05):
I'm getting a little PTSD about this.
OK, so our songs today areabout disasters of water,
disasters of heat, all kindsof bad luck and trouble.
And optimism -
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:16):
Right on.
FRED RASCOE (02:17):
I guess?
Well, it may be hard to be in anup mood considering the giants
of music that passed this week.
But it's summer and it's atime for fun and optimism,
no matter how much bad luckand trouble comes our way.
So let's start with one of themost well-known and well-loved
summer anthems by an artist whopassed away earlier this week
(02:37):
at the age of 82.
This is Hot Fun in theSummertime by Sly and the Family
Stone.
["HOT FUN IN THE SUMMERTIME" -SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE]
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:54):
That was Hot Fun in the Summertime
by Sly and the Family Stone.
Our show today is calledmore bad luck and trouble.
I believe it's the fourthepisode of bad luck and trouble
that we've gotten intobecause it's Friday the 13th.
We're remembering thechilled water emergency,
which began on July 26, 2024.
(03:15):
Do you all remember that?
MARLEE GIVENS (03:17):
I do.
I mean, it's one of thosethings that, how they say,
it's like graduallythen all at once.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:23):
Yes.
MARLEE GIVENS (03:24):
That was my experience.
I was just like, oh, it'sa little warm in here.
Oh, it feels a little humid.
Oh, I noticed theair is not running.
And yeah, we were all just kindof casually making comments
about, is it warmin your office?
FRED RASCOE (03:38):
And it was warm here in the studio.
MARLEE GIVENS (03:40):
It was.
Yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:41):
This was a Friday, July 26, 2024.
And I think that show thatwe were doing that day,
we mentioned on air--
FRED RASCOE (03:47):
At least one person said.
It seems warm in here.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:50):
It's very hot in here.
So I believe everyone hasa sense of what's coming.
Chilled water emergencymust mean something
about temperature,but I think we
should let people know howHVAC works at Georgia Tech,
or for a good chunk ofthe Georgia Tech campus.
Because it wasvery strange to me
when I learned how we heatand cool the buildings.
(04:11):
Does anyone want tostart or shall I dive in?
FRED RASCOE (04:14):
Yeah, HVAC is magic to me.
So why don't you start.
CHARLIE BENNETT (04:20):
This is kind of alchemical itself.
Yeah.
So, as it turnsout, and I am not
an engineer nor a scientist--
ALEX MCGEE (04:27):
But you went to Georgia Tech.
CHARLIE BENNETT (04:29):
I did go to Georgia Tech.
Ivan Allen, Collegeof Liberal Arts.
ALEX MCGEE (04:33):
There you go.
CHARLIE BENNETT (04:35):
So there's two big pipes.
[LAUGHTER]
We use steam and chilledwater to do campus--
almost campus wide.
I mean, when the campuswas much smaller,
it was a single unified system.
But there's been expansions,so there are satellite chunks
and also there's fourpipe systems and all that.
But the thing that happenedhere is the two pipe system
(04:59):
had a terrible failure.
And a two pipe system is whenyou put hot steam through one
pipe all the time in allthe buildings, so they
keep the buildings warm.
And in the summer, andthis is what I'm told,
the steam keeps going, butthe chilled water goes in
and they overcome the steamheat with the chilled water.
(05:20):
It must be very cold water.
Marlee is noddinglike she knows,
or at least you'veheard this, too.
MARLEE GIVENS (05:25):
I have heard it, but I kind of guessed it
because, in the old office thatFred and I used to work in,
I remember there wouldbe days when we'd walk in
and we would only beexperiencing the hot air
and kind realize that, oh, thecold part is not doing anything.
But mostly, it's thatweek between semesters
(05:49):
when they turn all the steam offand we only get the cold air.
CHARLIE BENNETT (05:54):
Yeah, and that can be brutal on its own.
So there's a plantunderneath the whistle,
and the whistle is nearthe football stadium.
It's a landmark on campus.
It goes off atthis point, it just
goes off whenever ishow I experience it,
although I'm surethere's a schedule.
ALEX MCGEE (06:12):
There is a schedule.
CHARLIE BENNETT (06:13):
There's not really a schedule.
ALEX MCGEE (06:14):
It's kept by like an atomic clock
or something like that.
I'm not making that up.
CHARLIE BENNETT (06:18):
I know you're the university archivist,
but I don't believe you.
[LAUGHTER]
From the way thatjust the random--
I mean, it used to be fiveminutes before and five minutes
after the hour.
And now it's like,is that 15 after?
What is that?
I don't know.
It might be accurate,but it is weird.
ALEX MCGEE (06:35):
Sure.
I'll give you that.
CHARLIE BENNETT: All right, cool. (06:36):
undefined
So the chilled water--
oh, the chiller.
It's called the chiller,which seems so silly.
I can't even remember it.
But the chiller isunderneath the whistle
and it has a big pipe.
And there was at least oneleak, if not multiple leaks.
ALEX MCGEE (06:56):
And then, there was another leak.
CHARLIE BENNETT (06:58):
And then, there was another leak.
[LAUGHTER]
ALEX MCGEE (07:00):
On a different part of-- yes,
a different part of campus.
FRED RASCOE (07:03):
Failure cascaded.
MARLEE GIVENS (07:04):
Yes.
CHARLIE BENNETT (07:05):
Let me read you an email that went out at 6:00
PM on July 26.
This was from GTENS, The GeorgiaTech Emergency Notification
System.
This is a GTENS inform from theGeorgia Tech Police Department.
Infrastructure andsustainability,
which is a departmentor a division,
is aware of ongoing chilledwater outages across campus.
(07:28):
I&S workingdiligently to restore
chilled water to buildings,and will continue
to work through the weekend.
Spoiler alert, itwas longer than that.
If you have temperaturesensitive equipment or research
on campus, please monitoryour areas over the weekend
and communicate withyour building manager.
Anticipate impacts tocontinue into next week.
(07:50):
For updatesregarding the outage,
please visit the link below.
Additionally, due to the chilledwater outage at the John C.
Lewis Student Center, we willbe closed through Monday at 7:00
AM.
Again, it was a littlelonger than that.
This had COVIDvibes all over it.
FRED RASCOE (08:09):
We were all sent home.
CHARLIE BENNETT: We were sent home. (08:11):
undefined
MARLEE GIVENS (08:12):
We were, yeah.
ALEX MCGEE (08:13):
Well, really, we were told don't come in also.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, I've got some-- (08:17):
undefined
I've got a message fromlater that weekend.
But yeah, thetemperatures all started
rising because thesteam was going crazy.
The buildings all startedto get really hot.
ALEX MCGEE (08:28):
Well, and it was late July in Atlanta, Georgia,
which is already hotand miserable outside.
CHARLIE BENNETT (08:35):
I mean, it's the middle of June
and I had to walk a littleextra and I'm sweaty.
FRED RASCOE (08:40):
The thermostat in my office was in the 80s
somewhere.
It was like about 84 or 85last time I saw it before I--
MARLEE GIVENS (08:50):
And it wasn't just the heat,
it was the humidity.
FRED RASCOE (08:54):
And all over campus.
And they were working diligentlyto find where the leak actually
was.
CHARLIE BENNETT (09:02):
Do you remember how many feet underground
the leak turned out to be?
ALEX MCGEE (09:06):
No, I do not.
CHARLIE BENNETT (09:08):
20.
ALEX MCGEE (09:08):
Wow.
And again, one of theleaks, we should say.
CHARLIE BENNETT (09:12):
So there was a rapid temperature
drop in the-- excuse me.
A rapid pressure drop in theearly morning of July 26.
So it started happening longbefore it became an emergency.
And Jim Stevens, Ibelieve, is the head of I&S
or the vice president incharge of infrastructure
and sustainability.
And he says in anarticle about this
(09:35):
that as soon as hesaw the pressure drop,
he knew what it was becausethey had done drills on this.
Because they all knew, one day,the pipes from the '60s were
going to have a break in them.
And unfortunately, thisbreak was deep underground.
OK, any last thoughts beforewe go into a music set?
(09:56):
Anything from thesetup to chilled water?
FRED RASCOE (10:00):
I only remember that they desperately
tried patching it by findingchilled water pipes that
were still working.
Because there werea few on campus,
and they were able topartially cool some buildings.
So it wasn't a totaloutage 100% on campus,
but it was 100% in the library.
CHARLIE BENNETT (10:22):
Oh yes.
MARLEE GIVENS (10:23):
Yeah, and thankfully, it was not just
a single system,as you mentioned.
In the old days, therewas just the one pipe,
or the one cold pipe and theone hot pipe that we had--
we had multiplesystems that we--
that could potentially fail, butluckily, not all of them did.
CHARLIE BENNETT (10:39):
All those kids in the new dorms,
they got lucky.
[LAUGHTER]
MARLEE GIVENS (10:44):
This is Lost in the Stacks,
and we will be back withmore about pipes and problems
after our music set.
File this setunder TH7466.5.H68.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- It's an invitationonly affair.
We'll have to sneak inthrough the service entrance.
- Hold on.
Wait a minute.
(11:05):
Who elected youleader of this outfit?
Since we've beenfollowing your lead,
we got nothing but trouble.
I got this close to beingstrung up and consumed
in a fire with no endand sunstroke and soggy.
- Turned into a frog.
- He wouldn't turn into a frog.
[END PLAYBACK]
[TORO Y MOI, "WAY TOO HOT"]
(11:27):
That was Way Too Hot by Toro y Moi.
And before that, Heat Wave byMartha Reeves and the Vandellas.
Songs about beingovercome by the heat.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Lost in theStacks, and today's show
(11:49):
is called more badluck and trouble.
And we're talking about lastyear's chilled water emergency
on the Georgia Tech campus.
CHARLIE BENNETT (11:58):
In particular.
MARLEE GIVENS (11:59):
And I said, to me, it
was like-- it feltkind of like a gradual
and then all at oncekind of situation.
I mean, at whatpoint did you all
realize that itwas an emergency?
FRED RASCOE (12:12):
I think, for me, when
we were told that we justneeded to stay home for a while,
specifically toldnot to come in.
CHARLIE BENNETT (12:21):
Guess what?
I got that email, too.
July 28, late in the day, mydepartment received this email,
and I'm sure the otherdepartments received
some version.
Good evening, all.
Due to the many issues withthe chilled water systems,
Crosland and PriceGilbert are going
to be very hot forthe next two weeks.
(12:42):
I strongly recommend--that's in bold--
I strongly recommend thateveryone work from home
this week, especiallyif you may suffer
health risks due to the heat.
If you have to come to campus,wear cool, beachy clothes.
Do not try to comein business casual.
You can book a room in Clough towork if you have to be on site.
Now, Clough was built in 2011,so it had some extra stuff going
(13:05):
and it was cooler, not cool.
As of this evening,Sunday evening,
after the pipes allbroke, we are closing off
Clough from PriceGilbert and Crosland.
Clough should startcooling tomorrow,
and we want the studentswho are taking final exams--
that's what was happening, too.
MARLEE GIVENS (13:24):
I forgot about that.
CHARLIE BENNETT (13:25):
Final exams to be as comfortable as possible.
Clough and the libraryare on separate systems.
I will give youupdates as I get them.
We are movinglibrary events that
are in Crosland andPrice Gilbert which
may affect RATS night.
FRED RASCOE (13:39):
Another spoiler alert there.
CHARLIE BENNETT (13:41):
Let me use my narrator voice.
It did affect rats night.
So that's when-- I thinkthat's when I really--
it was clear to me, oh,something's happening.
And that, I think, is when Istarted having nightmares, too,
because that was waytoo much like the COVID,
don't come in for a few weeks.
MARLEE GIVENS (14:00):
It was.
Yeah.
FRED RASCOE (14:02):
Except we could, because pretty soon after this,
everyone in the library,especially the administration,
realized, we still haveabout 30,000 books here
in the library.
And in archives, theyrealized, oh, we've
got all this archival stuff.
And the buildingtemperatures in the high 80s,
(14:22):
plus the uncontrolled humidity,very bad for those kinds
of materials, and they hadto do something about it.
CHARLIE BENNETT (14:30):
My personal version of this was we
had just done a--
I'll call it a renovation.
Did a renovation at thehouse, which moved bedrooms.
And in order toclear out some space,
I had brought to the officeall of the photos that
were stuffed in the closet.
So the shoeboxes ofphotos, literally, and also
(14:52):
some photo albums and justa lot of paper memorabilia
for my family.
Because the office is safeand climate controlled,
so I could leave them there.
And then, I foundout, no, you've
just put all of your memoriesinto a mold growing environment.
FRED RASCOE (15:10):
And so, at the library, folks realizing this
quickly mobilized.
And I cannot remember thefolks that led this charge.
CHARLIE BENNETT (15:20):
Randall.
Randall for sure.
Public services.
So a huge shout out.
FRED RASCOE (15:24):
I want to make sure I shout out the right folks
there.
But there wereteams to make boxes
to put all these boxesaway so we could take them
to climate controlled storageuntil this all got sorted out.
And there were teams that camein and vacuumed mold spores off
of books, just going hourby hour, just book by book,
just vacuuming.
ALEX MCGEE (15:45):
Well, I do feel like
CHARLIE BENNETT (15:46):
Let's back up a second.
ALEX MCGEE (15:46):
Yeah, we should explain why that had to happen.
So the spots wherethe library had
room to move books fromwhen they're taking them out
of these buildings is theLibrary Service Center
and the Library Records Center.
Both of those locations havearchival collections, obviously,
library service centeralso has Emory stuff, too.
And rule number 101, if youhave any suspicion of mold,
(16:12):
you do not want to bring it inwith your mold-free collections.
So that was why there was noway that was coming near--
FRED RASCOE (16:19):
It was a preemptive vacuuming.
ALEX MCGEE (16:21):
All our stuff.
CHARLIE BENNETT (16:22):
Here's the tiniest bit of science, too.
So there's moldeverywhere all the time.
And we just have--
ALEX MCGEE (16:28):
We keep it at bay.
CHARLIE BENNETT (16:29):
--conditions set to keep it from exploding,
or The Last of Us situation.
So we had to get all ofthose even remotely activated
spores off of any surface thatwas going any of those places.
So yeah, we had toassemble the boxes.
Then, you had tovacuum the boxes,
(16:51):
then you had tovacuum the books,
and then you had tovacuum them again.
That's hard to say.
And then, wipe themdown and then pack.
And then, some peopleactually vacuumed
the outside of the boxes again.
FRED RASCOE (17:02):
And then, put them on a cart,
take them to the storage area.
And this was alllibrarian employees--
library employeesdoing this in shifts.
I think all of us did something.
I did some box making,I did some vacuuming.
CHARLIE BENNETT (17:20):
I finally bought some noise
canceling headphones
[LAUGHTER]
Vacuum situation.
Because these are specialtyvacuums that came from archives.
ALEX MCGEE (17:29):
Yeah, like HEPA vacuums.
CHARLIE BENNETT (17:31):
Alex, are you able to explain
what a HEPA vacuum is?
ALEX MCGEE (17:36):
It has to do with the filtration of it, basically.
A lot of people haveHEPA air filters, too.
That's usually like a stepabove the standard ones
you have in your house.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Much smaller holes (17:47):
undefined
in the filter to catch microbesand spores and things like that.
CHARLIE BENNETT (17:53):
Oh gosh.
We're almost out oftime in this segment.
Is there anything anybodyremembers from the vacuuming
that sticks out?
ALEX MCGEE (18:00):
I didn't do any.
[LAUGHTER]
CHARLIE BENNETT (18:02):
That's good.
FRED RASCOE (18:03):
Saved your ears.
CHARLIE BENNETT: I remember seeing (18:05):
undefined
the person who wrotethe email to us
and someone else walking intothe library in, quite literally,
beach clothes.
They took their ownemail seriously.
FRED RASCOE (18:20):
You are listening to Lost in the Stacks,
and we're going to hear moreabout bad luck and trouble,
this specific bad luckin trouble, I think,
on the left side of the hour.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MANDY (18:37):
Hi, I'm Mandy, the accordion playing
data librarian, and you arelistening to Lost in the Stacks
on WREK Atlanta.
CHARLIE BENNETT (18:53):
Today's show is called more bad luck in trouble.
We're talking about the chilledwater emergency at Georgia Tech
last year.
And I want to read you somethingfrom a student newspaper blog
from Dordt Universityin Sioux Center, Iowa.
I found this post just trawlingthe internet dated October 2024.
It's the answer to aletter to the editor.
(19:17):
Dear too hot to handle, I wouldlike to begin by telling you
that the library tends tofluctuate in temperature.
During my research, Ifound out the system is not
controlled by thoseoccupying the space,
but rather, it ison a set thermostat.
It has also been said thatduring the changing of seasons,
the air conditionerhas a challenging
time finding a happy medium.
There are days when it seemscold and other days where
(19:38):
it seems extremely hot.
With that said, I wastold there really is
no reason it is always so hot.
So it would be appreciated ifwe were patient as the seasons
change, and hopefully,when winter hits,
the system will beable to keep the room
at the perfect temperature.
Until then, I encourage youto walk into the library
and think of it as goingout to sit on a warm beach.
(20:00):
Think of the sunshining down on you
with the waves crashingin front of you.
Imagine the peaceful environmentas you open your book
and soak in all the informationthat the pages are filled with.
Think of all your peers who arefrom the warmer states, those
from Arizona, Florida,and California.
Think of the joy that thewarm environment brings them.
(20:20):
And then, maybe you, too, canbegin to appreciate the sweat.
Maybe, instead of a furnace,you can view the room as a place
where the students canbegin to feel more at home,
and where they canfinally be brought peace
through the imaginary beach andthe warmness that begins to make
their hearts full once again.
So although there is no exactanswer to why the library tends
(20:40):
to feel so hot, just thinkof the warmth and joy
that it brings toso many others.
Think of all the other happyplaces where the sun is still
shining, and soak it allin while you still can.
What an insane response.
File this set under TS280.C7,and do not imagine a beach
(21:02):
when you walk into the library.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- Fire has got the temperatureup all over the camp.
- Won't last long, though.
- Neither will we.
- How will we make it?
- Maybe we shouldn't.
- If you're worried about me.
- If we've got anysurprises for each other,
(21:26):
I don't think we're in muchshape to do anything about it.
- Well, what do we do?
- Why don't we just waithere for a little while,
see what happens.
[END PLAYBACK]
[KISSING CLUB, "WATER IN THEPIPES"]
(21:52):
(SINGING) We don't need lights
Yeah, we can hear thewater in the pipes
FRED RASCOE (21:58):
Water in the Pipes by Kissing Club.
Before that, Cold Waterby Pedro's Basement.
And we started with Broken Pipeby Dumb Numbers and Melvins.
Those are songs aboutthings going right and wrong
with our infrastructure.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ALEX MCGEE (22:17):
This is Lost in the Stacks,
and our show today is calledmore bad luck and trouble.
We're talking aboutthe chilled water
emergency at GeorgiaTech last year
and what happenedto the library.
And in particular, we're goingto talk about the archives
because that's why I'm here.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, that's why (22:31):
undefined
you're here, to talkabout the water emergency.
[LAUGHTER]
We're singling out thearchives because, as you've
told us off air, therewas a lot more going on.
ALEX MCGEE (22:42):
High drama.
CHARLIE BENNETT (22:44):
Can you lay out for our listeners
the pieces of the archivesthat are in the Crosland tower?
ALEX MCGEE (22:50):
Yeah, so we have our archives reading room
on the first floorof Crosland tower.
And then, in the basement, wehave our archives classroom,
we have what is calledthe processing room,
and then, we haveour stacks, which
also includes ourtemperature controlled
vault. The stacksis where we keep,
(23:14):
usually, some of our mostvaluable collections,
same with the vault. They're themost used, the most high value.
We like to keep them--
CHARLIE BENNETT (23:22):
Most covered in mold spores.
ALEX MCGEE (23:24):
Yeah, exactly.
Definitely the ones you don'twant covered in mold spores.
And so when thishappened, I knew about it.
I knew on Friday, and I hadheard stuff over the weekend.
And we were getting emailswhere we were literally
getting the temperatureand humidity
percentages because we havehumidity monitors in our spaces
(23:49):
already.
The rest of thelibrary now has those,
but the archives always did.
And so we were veryaware of, generally,
when you go in the basementand the archive spaces
in the basement, you'relike, oh, it's cold in here.
You want a sweater.
And that was not the conditionsthat they were experiencing.
(24:11):
So we were seeing numbersas high as almost 80 degrees
in our basement.
And they quickly did bring indehumidifiers and particularly
in the stacks.
But our classroom, just a littlebackground, we did not always
have as much processing spacefor our student workers,
(24:32):
our interns over the summer, ourfaculty that do processing work,
like myself.
We've since gained thisspace, but last summer, we
were actually using theclassroom for these folks
to work over the summer.
So we had collectionsin the classroom,
and the classroom endedup being probably one
of the worst spaces we had.
CHARLIE BENNETT (24:48):
Because these are all in the basement.
ALEX MCGEE (24:50):
These are all in the basement.
And so, usually, you'relike, the basement's cool.
We don't have to worryabout the basement.
And the archivesstacks in particular
have their own system.
And so, the classroom--
I wasn't there inperson to experience it,
but I was told by ourassistant Dean Jody,
(25:12):
she told me that you couldwalk in and immediately tell
how high the humiditywas and that it smelled.
And so, for us, alarmbells are going off.
We were very worried aboutthe collections in there.
CHARLIE BENNETT: So when you first (25:24):
undefined
grasped how extensivethis was, what were you
worried about the most?
Was there a particularthing in the archives
or a particular kind of thing?
ALEX MCGEE (25:35):
The oldest stuff.
The oldest-- the old paper.
I mean, our rare books.
We have insurance on all thisstuff, but some of these,
I mean, it's literallyirreplaceable.
And I know this experiencealso highlighted
us working with a disasterrecovery kind of company
(25:58):
to get a plan in place to helpus get on the other side of what
was happening.
So Jody and Aisha, our AssociateDean that we report up to,
they met with these firmsand got each of them
to give us proposals.
I also remember Jody just beinglike, they could not grasp--
(26:19):
usually these people--these are the people
you respond whenyou have a leak.
They were strugglingto understand--
your what?
Is the humidity likethe chilled water?
What?
And so this was adifferent area for them.
And so what the plan ended upbeing is that they were like,
we bring in our own condensers.
We were prioritized for thelibrary and campus because
(26:42):
of the value ofstuff in our spaces.
CHARLIE BENNETT (26:45):
We can't just pack all that stuff up
and carry it out.
ALEX MCGEE (26:48):
Yeah, we would have had--
I mean, and the emails wewere getting when we were all
being told, don't come in, wewere also getting emails saying,
don't come in.
But if we need to getstuff out rapidly,
we are going to ask you tocome in work in the evening
when you're not inless ideal conditions.
(27:08):
So yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT: So it was real bad. (27:09):
undefined
But the nice thingabout all this
is that, ultimately, therewas no horrible bad outcome.
It kind of-- they fixed it,the folks on campus, mostly,
although I think they'restill doing certain tests
and adding pipes.
But I don't remembergetting any notice
about a disaster or some seriousdamage to the collections.
(27:34):
Do you all know aboutanything that happened?
FRED RASCOE (27:36):
Nothing in archives had to be discarded, was it?
ALEX MCGEE (27:38):
No, nothing was discarded.
We did have to have stuffprofessionally cleaned.
CHARLIE BENNETT (27:42):
Yeah, there was a lot of mitigation.
And Jody once told methat she thought it maybe
had just been too hot inthe library for the mold
to actually grow.
ALEX MCGEE (27:53):
I remember hearing the upper floors in Crosland
were in the 90stemperature wise.
So that's prettyhot for indoors.
CHARLIE BENNETT: And the one thing (28:01):
undefined
that is both funnyand depressing
is that RATS night, as we said,the freshman greeting event
was postponed to a day thatwould eventually be a snow day.
And so then it was postponedagain to this year.
So we missed out on RATS night.
FRED RASCOE (28:23):
I'll say that, although we came through this
situation mostly withminimal long lasting impact,
the reverberations are stillthere because we cannot get
into the ground floor entranceof our library because the--
two of the crucial pipesthat they were working on
(28:44):
were right outside.
They dug up the wholething, replaced the pipes.
For a long time, therewere pipes above ground
that were installedtemporarily that were actually
moving this chilledwater to the library.
And so there were thesegiant, I think, foot
diameter pipes blockingthe ground floor entrance
to the library.
(29:05):
Those are gone.
And now--
ALEX MCGEE (29:08):
It's looking close.
FRED RASCOE (29:09):
The ground floor entrance
looks almost ready to open.
Almost.
ALEX MCGEE (29:12):
I know I sent some angry emails last summer
about that entrancebeing closed.
So I could go tell us whenthat started, actually.
It predated the--
CHARLIE BENNETT (29:19):
Unless there's some construction that
inconveniences you.
This is Lost in theStacks, and today's show
was more bad luck in trouble.
Let's finish offwith some music.
MARLEE GIVENS (29:31):
File this set under HV551.P49.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- Musty book?
Quick tips.
Put dryer sheetsbetween several pages
and seal it in a plasticbag for a few days.
Nice.
(29:51):
[END PLAYBACK]
[SAVOY BROWN, "DOING FINE"]
That was Doing Fine by SavoyBrown, and before that Recover
by Second Still.
Songs about bouncing backand handling whatever fate
throws at you.
(30:12):
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT (30:21):
Today's episode is called more bad luck
and trouble.
We've been talking aboutthe chilled water emergency
at Georgia Tech last year.
So let's get off campus andend the show with shout outs
to other infrastructurebad luck and trouble.
For instance, just this weekI had a partial power outage
in my house in which aboutone third of my circuits
still had power while therest of the house and all
(30:42):
of our other neighborshad no power.
Very spooky.
My youngest nowbelieves in ghosts.
Fred, how about you?
FRED RASCOE (30:49):
OK, I'm going to make this very quick.
In April, we identified a leakcoming into our kitchen ceiling
as coming--
we identified the sourceof it, I should say,
as coming from the bathtubdrain line upstairs.
Fast forward to today, ouroven and our dishwasher
is in our dining area,our cabinets are removed,
(31:11):
my kitchen sinkis in the carport,
and we are currently waiting forthe asbestos remediation team
to come and removethe floor tiles.
ALEX MCGEE (31:20):
Oh, so you're in it right now.
FRED RASCOE (31:22):
That's our life right now.
MARLEE GIVENS (31:23):
I'm going to say Fred wins.
ALEX MCGEE (31:25):
Yeah, I can't top that.
MARLEE GIVENS (31:27):
I mean, so I'm on the board
of our homeowners associationor condo association.
And so the most common vexationthat we have to deal with
is leaks.
And I'll just say,long story short,
the biggest problem is thateveryone wants the board
to fix it for them.
How about you, Cody?
CODY (31:45):
You guys remember when the I-85 bridge caught on fire
and collapsed?
Best thing thatever happened to me.
I never drove to work inAlpharetta again after that day.
I started taking Martabecause I just refused
to have to deal with that.
And when the Martatrain would go over
that section of theinterstate, everyone
would just leanover into the window
and look at the trafficand all go, ooh.
(32:05):
So it was a nice collectivemoment on the Marta train.
Alex, what did you have?
ALEX MCGEE (32:10):
So much like Charlie, I
had power issues in my fairlynew construction house.
CHARLIE BENNETT: No one is immune. (32:17):
undefined
ALEX MCGEE (32:19):
Yeah, we had power surges that took out our TV.
And then, withinthe next six months,
took out the controlpanel of our range, which
the downside of having adigital screen, I guess,
on your appliances is thatthing can go really easy.
So that was alsoan expensive fix.
CHARLIE BENNETT: It's like Fred said, (32:39):
undefined
we're very close to justliving in caves once again.
OK, let's roll the credits.
But it is Friday the 13th, sokeep your head on a swivel.
(SINGING) Look out.
ALEX MCGEE (32:56):
Lost in the Stacks is
a collaboration between WREKAtlanta and the Georgia Tech
Library.
Written and produced byAlex McGee, Charlie Bennett,
Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.
MARLEE GIVENS (33:05):
Legal counsel and a box of replacement HEPA
filters were provided by theBurrus Intellectual Property Law
Group in Atlanta, Georgia.
CHARLIE BENNETT (33:12):
We need more of those all the time.
Special thanks to everybodywho helped in any way
when the chilled water went out.
And thanks, as always, toeach and every one of you
for listening.
MARLEE GIVENS (33:22):
Our web page is library.gatech.e
du/lostinthestacks, where you'llfind our most recent episode,
a link to our podcastfeed, and a web form
if you want to getin touch with us.
CHARLIE BENNETT (33:33):
On next week's show, it's a material umph show.
We're going to talkabout the notebook age
and thinking on paper.
FRED RASCOE (33:40):
All right, it's time for our last song today.
And speaking ofbad luck, trouble,
and summer, we alsolearned this week
that Brian Wilson passed away.
So Sly Stone earlier this week.
ALEX MCGEE (33:52):
Both 82.
FRED RASCOE (33:53):
Both 82 years old.
Man, talk about bad luck.
So in celebration ofBrian Wilson's life
and the search forendless summer,
hopefully with workingair conditioning,
let's close with aBeach Boys track.
This is Kokomo.
But no, I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding.
This is Don't WorryBaby, possibly
(34:17):
from one of the best 45singles ever released with I
Get Around on the other side.
Anyway, whatever bad luckand trouble comes your way,
don't worry, everythingwill work out all right.
Right?
Yeah, sure.
CHARLIE BENNETT (34:31):
Yeah, I mean, everything
will be fine eventually.
FRED RASCOE (34:33):
All right.
Or we'll just goand live in a cave.
Have a great weekend, everyone.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(00:01):
(SINGING) Gloom,despair, and agony on me
Deep dark depression,excessive misery
If it weren't for bad luck,I'd have no luck at all
Oh, gloom, despair,and agony on me.
CHARLIE BENNETT (00:44):
You are listening to WREK Atlanta.
And this is Hee-Haw.
No, this is Lost in theStacks, the research library
rock and roll radio show.
I'm Charlie Bennett inthe studio with everybody,
Fred, Alex, Marlee, and Cody.
Each week on Lost in theStacks, we pick a theme
and then use it to create amix of music and library talk.
(01:05):
Whichever you tune infor, we hope you dig it.
ALEX MCGEE (01:08):
Our show today is called more bad luck
and trouble.
As we broadcast, it is June13, 2025, and it's a Friday.
MARLEE GIVENS (01:16):
And sometimes, when Friday the 13th rolls
around, we devote a show to oneof the many misfortunes that
befall libraries, archives,and the world of information.
FRED RASCOE (01:25):
It's already giving me the heebie jeebies.
ALEX MCGEE (01:27):
I know.
And what's worse,we are going to talk
about something that happenedright here at Georgia Tech
library last year.
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:33):
It was quite the ride,
and we decided toget back on it.
MARLEE GIVENS (01:36):
That's right.
Today, we're going to relive anevent that befell the Georgia
Tech Library, the campus widechilled water outage, which
led to risingtemperatures and even more
alarming for ourlibrarians and archivists,
rising humidity levels.
So gather round as we retellthis true story in all
its gory detail and how itunfolded on the ground for us
(01:59):
in the library.
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:00):
I don't if I want to do this now.
I'm having a little bit--
ALEX MCGEE (02:03):
We've come too far.
You can't turn around now.
FRED RASCOE (02:05):
I'm getting a little PTSD about this.
OK, so our songs today areabout disasters of water,
disasters of heat, all kindsof bad luck and trouble.
And optimism -
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:16):
Right on.
FRED RASCOE (02:17):
I guess?
Well, it may be hard to be in anup mood considering the giants
of music that passed this week.
But it's summer and it's atime for fun and optimism,
no matter how much bad luckand trouble comes our way.
So let's start with one of themost well-known and well-loved
summer anthems by an artist whopassed away earlier this week
(02:37):
at the age of 82.
This is Hot Fun in theSummertime by Sly and the Family
Stone.
["HOT FUN IN THE SUMMERTIME" -SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE]
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:54):
That was Hot Fun in the Summertime
by Sly and the Family Stone.
Our show today is calledmore bad luck and trouble.
I believe it's the fourthepisode of bad luck and trouble
that we've gotten intobecause it's Friday the 13th.
We're remembering thechilled water emergency,
which began on July 26, 2024.
(03:15):
Do you all remember that?
MARLEE GIVENS (03:17):
I do.
I mean, it's one of thosethings that, how they say,
it's like graduallythen all at once.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:23):
Yes.
MARLEE GIVENS (03:24):
That was my experience.
I was just like, oh, it'sa little warm in here.
Oh, it feels a little humid.
Oh, I noticed theair is not running.
And yeah, we were all just kindof casually making comments
about, is it warmin your office?
FRED RASCOE (03:38):
And it was warm here in the studio.
MARLEE GIVENS (03:40):
It was.
Yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:41):
This was a Friday, July 26, 2024.
And I think that show thatwe were doing that day,
we mentioned on air--
FRED RASCOE (03:47):
At least one person said.
It seems warm in here.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:50):
It's very hot in here.
So I believe everyone hasa sense of what's coming.
Chilled water emergencymust mean something
about temperature,but I think we
should let people know howHVAC works at Georgia Tech,
or for a good chunk ofthe Georgia Tech campus.
Because it wasvery strange to me
when I learned how we heatand cool the buildings.
(04:11):
Does anyone want tostart or shall I dive in?
FRED RASCOE (04:14):
Yeah, HVAC is magic to me.
So why don't you start.
CHARLIE BENNETT (04:20):
This is kind of alchemical itself.
Yeah.
So, as it turnsout, and I am not
an engineer nor a scientist--
ALEX MCGEE (04:27):
But you went to Georgia Tech.
CHARLIE BENNETT (04:29):
I did go to Georgia Tech.
Ivan Allen, Collegeof Liberal Arts.
ALEX MCGEE (04:33):
There you go.
CHARLIE BENNETT (04:35):
So there's two big pipes.
[LAUGHTER]
We use steam and chilledwater to do campus--
almost campus wide.
I mean, when the campuswas much smaller,
it was a single unified system.
But there's been expansions,so there are satellite chunks
and also there's fourpipe systems and all that.
But the thing that happenedhere is the two pipe system
(04:59):
had a terrible failure.
And a two pipe system is whenyou put hot steam through one
pipe all the time in allthe buildings, so they
keep the buildings warm.
And in the summer, andthis is what I'm told,
the steam keeps going, butthe chilled water goes in
and they overcome the steamheat with the chilled water.
(05:20):
It must be very cold water.
Marlee is noddinglike she knows,
or at least you'veheard this, too.
MARLEE GIVENS (05:25):
I have heard it, but I kind of guessed it
because, in the old office thatFred and I used to work in,
I remember there wouldbe days when we'd walk in
and we would only beexperiencing the hot air
and kind realize that, oh, thecold part is not doing anything.
But mostly, it's thatweek between semesters
(05:49):
when they turn all the steam offand we only get the cold air.
CHARLIE BENNETT (05:54):
Yeah, and that can be brutal on its own.
So there's a plantunderneath the whistle,
and the whistle is nearthe football stadium.
It's a landmark on campus.
It goes off atthis point, it just
goes off whenever ishow I experience it,
although I'm surethere's a schedule.
ALEX MCGEE (06:12):
There is a schedule.
CHARLIE BENNETT (06:13):
There's not really a schedule.
ALEX MCGEE (06:14):
It's kept by like an atomic clock
or something like that.
I'm not making that up.
CHARLIE BENNETT (06:18):
I know you're the university archivist,
but I don't believe you.
[LAUGHTER]
From the way thatjust the random--
I mean, it used to be fiveminutes before and five minutes
after the hour.
And now it's like,is that 15 after?
What is that?
I don't know.
It might be accurate,but it is weird.
ALEX MCGEE (06:35):
Sure.
I'll give you that.
CHARLIE BENNETT: All right, cool. (06:36):
undefined
So the chilled water--
oh, the chiller.
It's called the chiller,which seems so silly.
I can't even remember it.
But the chiller isunderneath the whistle
and it has a big pipe.
And there was at least oneleak, if not multiple leaks.
ALEX MCGEE (06:56):
And then, there was another leak.
CHARLIE BENNETT (06:58):
And then, there was another leak.
[LAUGHTER]
ALEX MCGEE (07:00):
On a different part of-- yes,
a different part of campus.
FRED RASCOE (07:03):
Failure cascaded.
MARLEE GIVENS (07:04):
Yes.
CHARLIE BENNETT (07:05):
Let me read you an email that went out at 6:00
PM on July 26.
This was from GTENS, The GeorgiaTech Emergency Notification
System.
This is a GTENS inform from theGeorgia Tech Police Department.
Infrastructure andsustainability,
which is a departmentor a division,
is aware of ongoing chilledwater outages across campus.
(07:28):
I&S workingdiligently to restore
chilled water to buildings,and will continue
to work through the weekend.
Spoiler alert, itwas longer than that.
If you have temperaturesensitive equipment or research
on campus, please monitoryour areas over the weekend
and communicate withyour building manager.
Anticipate impacts tocontinue into next week.
(07:50):
For updatesregarding the outage,
please visit the link below.
Additionally, due to the chilledwater outage at the John C.
Lewis Student Center, we willbe closed through Monday at 7:00
AM.
Again, it was a littlelonger than that.
This had COVIDvibes all over it.
FRED RASCOE (08:09):
We were all sent home.
CHARLIE BENNETT: We were sent home. (08:11):
undefined
MARLEE GIVENS (08:12):
We were, yeah.
ALEX MCGEE (08:13):
Well, really, we were told don't come in also.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, I've got some-- (08:17):
undefined
I've got a message fromlater that weekend.
But yeah, thetemperatures all started
rising because thesteam was going crazy.
The buildings all startedto get really hot.
ALEX MCGEE (08:28):
Well, and it was late July in Atlanta, Georgia,
which is already hotand miserable outside.
CHARLIE BENNETT (08:35):
I mean, it's the middle of June
and I had to walk a littleextra and I'm sweaty.
FRED RASCOE (08:40):
The thermostat in my office was in the 80s
somewhere.
It was like about 84 or 85last time I saw it before I--
MARLEE GIVENS (08:50):
And it wasn't just the heat,
it was the humidity.
FRED RASCOE (08:54):
And all over campus.
And they were working diligentlyto find where the leak actually
was.
CHARLIE BENNETT (09:02):
Do you remember how many feet underground
the leak turned out to be?
ALEX MCGEE (09:06):
No, I do not.
CHARLIE BENNETT (09:08):
20.
ALEX MCGEE (09:08):
Wow.
And again, one of theleaks, we should say.
CHARLIE BENNETT (09:12):
So there was a rapid temperature
drop in the-- excuse me.
A rapid pressure drop in theearly morning of July 26.
So it started happening longbefore it became an emergency.
And Jim Stevens, Ibelieve, is the head of I&S
or the vice president incharge of infrastructure
and sustainability.
And he says in anarticle about this
(09:35):
that as soon as hesaw the pressure drop,
he knew what it was becausethey had done drills on this.
Because they all knew, one day,the pipes from the '60s were
going to have a break in them.
And unfortunately, thisbreak was deep underground.
OK, any last thoughts beforewe go into a music set?
(09:56):
Anything from thesetup to chilled water?
FRED RASCOE (10:00):
I only remember that they desperately
tried patching it by findingchilled water pipes that
were still working.
Because there werea few on campus,
and they were able topartially cool some buildings.
So it wasn't a totaloutage 100% on campus,
but it was 100% in the library.
CHARLIE BENNETT (10:22):
Oh yes.
MARLEE GIVENS (10:23):
Yeah, and thankfully, it was not just
a single system,as you mentioned.
In the old days, therewas just the one pipe,
or the one cold pipe and theone hot pipe that we had--
we had multiplesystems that we--
that could potentially fail, butluckily, not all of them did.
CHARLIE BENNETT (10:39):
All those kids in the new dorms,
they got lucky.
[LAUGHTER]
MARLEE GIVENS (10:44):
This is Lost in the Stacks,
and we will be back withmore about pipes and problems
after our music set.
File this setunder TH7466.5.H68.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- It's an invitationonly affair.
We'll have to sneak inthrough the service entrance.
- Hold on.
Wait a minute.
(11:05):
Who elected youleader of this outfit?
Since we've beenfollowing your lead,
we got nothing but trouble.
I got this close to beingstrung up and consumed
in a fire with no endand sunstroke and soggy.
- Turned into a frog.
- He wouldn't turn into a frog.
[END PLAYBACK]
[TORO Y MOI, "WAY TOO HOT"]
(11:27):
That was Way Too Hot by Toro y Moi.
And before that, Heat Wave byMartha Reeves and the Vandellas.
Songs about beingovercome by the heat.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Lost in theStacks, and today's show
(11:49):
is called more badluck and trouble.
And we're talking about lastyear's chilled water emergency
on the Georgia Tech campus.
CHARLIE BENNETT (11:58):
In particular.
MARLEE GIVENS (11:59):
And I said, to me, it
was like-- it feltkind of like a gradual
and then all at oncekind of situation.
I mean, at whatpoint did you all
realize that itwas an emergency?
FRED RASCOE (12:12):
I think, for me, when
we were told that we justneeded to stay home for a while,
specifically toldnot to come in.
CHARLIE BENNETT (12:21):
Guess what?
I got that email, too.
July 28, late in the day, mydepartment received this email,
and I'm sure the otherdepartments received
some version.
Good evening, all.
Due to the many issues withthe chilled water systems,
Crosland and PriceGilbert are going
to be very hot forthe next two weeks.
(12:42):
I strongly recommend--that's in bold--
I strongly recommend thateveryone work from home
this week, especiallyif you may suffer
health risks due to the heat.
If you have to come to campus,wear cool, beachy clothes.
Do not try to comein business casual.
You can book a room in Clough towork if you have to be on site.
Now, Clough was built in 2011,so it had some extra stuff going
(13:05):
and it was cooler, not cool.
As of this evening,Sunday evening,
after the pipes allbroke, we are closing off
Clough from PriceGilbert and Crosland.
Clough should startcooling tomorrow,
and we want the studentswho are taking final exams--
that's what was happening, too.
MARLEE GIVENS (13:24):
I forgot about that.
CHARLIE BENNETT (13:25):
Final exams to be as comfortable as possible.
Clough and the libraryare on separate systems.
I will give youupdates as I get them.
We are movinglibrary events that
are in Crosland andPrice Gilbert which
may affect RATS night.
FRED RASCOE (13:39):
Another spoiler alert there.
CHARLIE BENNETT (13:41):
Let me use my narrator voice.
It did affect rats night.
So that's when-- I thinkthat's when I really--
it was clear to me, oh,something's happening.
And that, I think, is when Istarted having nightmares, too,
because that was waytoo much like the COVID,
don't come in for a few weeks.
MARLEE GIVENS (14:00):
It was.
Yeah.
FRED RASCOE (14:02):
Except we could, because pretty soon after this,
everyone in the library,especially the administration,
realized, we still haveabout 30,000 books here
in the library.
And in archives, theyrealized, oh, we've
got all this archival stuff.
And the buildingtemperatures in the high 80s,
(14:22):
plus the uncontrolled humidity,very bad for those kinds
of materials, and they hadto do something about it.
CHARLIE BENNETT (14:30):
My personal version of this was we
had just done a--
I'll call it a renovation.
Did a renovation at thehouse, which moved bedrooms.
And in order toclear out some space,
I had brought to the officeall of the photos that
were stuffed in the closet.
So the shoeboxes ofphotos, literally, and also
(14:52):
some photo albums and justa lot of paper memorabilia
for my family.
Because the office is safeand climate controlled,
so I could leave them there.
And then, I foundout, no, you've
just put all of your memoriesinto a mold growing environment.
FRED RASCOE (15:10):
And so, at the library, folks realizing this
quickly mobilized.
And I cannot remember thefolks that led this charge.
CHARLIE BENNETT (15:20):
Randall.
Randall for sure.
Public services.
So a huge shout out.
FRED RASCOE (15:24):
I want to make sure I shout out the right folks
there.
But there wereteams to make boxes
to put all these boxesaway so we could take them
to climate controlled storageuntil this all got sorted out.
And there were teams that camein and vacuumed mold spores off
of books, just going hourby hour, just book by book,
just vacuuming.
ALEX MCGEE (15:45):
Well, I do feel like
CHARLIE BENNETT (15:46):
Let's back up a second.
ALEX MCGEE (15:46):
Yeah, we should explain why that had to happen.
So the spots wherethe library had
room to move books fromwhen they're taking them out
of these buildings is theLibrary Service Center
and the Library Records Center.
Both of those locations havearchival collections, obviously,
library service centeralso has Emory stuff, too.
And rule number 101, if youhave any suspicion of mold,
(16:12):
you do not want to bring it inwith your mold-free collections.
So that was why there was noway that was coming near--
FRED RASCOE (16:19):
It was a preemptive vacuuming.
ALEX MCGEE (16:21):
All our stuff.
CHARLIE BENNETT (16:22):
Here's the tiniest bit of science, too.
So there's moldeverywhere all the time.
And we just have--
ALEX MCGEE (16:28):
We keep it at bay.
CHARLIE BENNETT (16:29):
--conditions set to keep it from exploding,
or The Last of Us situation.
So we had to get all ofthose even remotely activated
spores off of any surface thatwas going any of those places.
So yeah, we had toassemble the boxes.
Then, you had tovacuum the boxes,
(16:51):
then you had tovacuum the books,
and then you had tovacuum them again.
That's hard to say.
And then, wipe themdown and then pack.
And then, some peopleactually vacuumed
the outside of the boxes again.
FRED RASCOE (17:02):
And then, put them on a cart,
take them to the storage area.
And this was alllibrarian employees--
library employeesdoing this in shifts.
I think all of us did something.
I did some box making,I did some vacuuming.
CHARLIE BENNETT (17:20):
I finally bought some noise
canceling headphones
[LAUGHTER]
Vacuum situation.
Because these are specialtyvacuums that came from archives.
ALEX MCGEE (17:29):
Yeah, like HEPA vacuums.
CHARLIE BENNETT (17:31):
Alex, are you able to explain
what a HEPA vacuum is?
ALEX MCGEE (17:36):
It has to do with the filtration of it, basically.
A lot of people haveHEPA air filters, too.
That's usually like a stepabove the standard ones
you have in your house.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Much smaller holes (17:47):
undefined
in the filter to catch microbesand spores and things like that.
CHARLIE BENNETT (17:53):
Oh gosh.
We're almost out oftime in this segment.
Is there anything anybodyremembers from the vacuuming
that sticks out?
ALEX MCGEE (18:00):
I didn't do any.
[LAUGHTER]
CHARLIE BENNETT (18:02):
That's good.
FRED RASCOE (18:03):
Saved your ears.
CHARLIE BENNETT: I remember seeing (18:05):
undefined
the person who wrotethe email to us
and someone else walking intothe library in, quite literally,
beach clothes.
They took their ownemail seriously.
FRED RASCOE (18:20):
You are listening to Lost in the Stacks,
and we're going to hear moreabout bad luck and trouble,
this specific bad luckin trouble, I think,
on the left side of the hour.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MANDY (18:37):
Hi, I'm Mandy, the accordion playing
data librarian, and you arelistening to Lost in the Stacks
on WREK Atlanta.
CHARLIE BENNETT (18:53):
Today's show is called more bad luck in trouble.
We're talking about the chilledwater emergency at Georgia Tech
last year.
And I want to read you somethingfrom a student newspaper blog
from Dordt Universityin Sioux Center, Iowa.
I found this post just trawlingthe internet dated October 2024.
It's the answer to aletter to the editor.
(19:17):
Dear too hot to handle, I wouldlike to begin by telling you
that the library tends tofluctuate in temperature.
During my research, Ifound out the system is not
controlled by thoseoccupying the space,
but rather, it ison a set thermostat.
It has also been said thatduring the changing of seasons,
the air conditionerhas a challenging
time finding a happy medium.
There are days when it seemscold and other days where
(19:38):
it seems extremely hot.
With that said, I wastold there really is
no reason it is always so hot.
So it would be appreciated ifwe were patient as the seasons
change, and hopefully,when winter hits,
the system will beable to keep the room
at the perfect temperature.
Until then, I encourage youto walk into the library
and think of it as goingout to sit on a warm beach.
(20:00):
Think of the sunshining down on you
with the waves crashingin front of you.
Imagine the peaceful environmentas you open your book
and soak in all the informationthat the pages are filled with.
Think of all your peers who arefrom the warmer states, those
from Arizona, Florida,and California.
Think of the joy that thewarm environment brings them.
(20:20):
And then, maybe you, too, canbegin to appreciate the sweat.
Maybe, instead of a furnace,you can view the room as a place
where the students canbegin to feel more at home,
and where they canfinally be brought peace
through the imaginary beach andthe warmness that begins to make
their hearts full once again.
So although there is no exactanswer to why the library tends
(20:40):
to feel so hot, just thinkof the warmth and joy
that it brings toso many others.
Think of all the other happyplaces where the sun is still
shining, and soak it allin while you still can.
What an insane response.
File this set under TS280.C7,and do not imagine a beach
(21:02):
when you walk into the library.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- Fire has got the temperatureup all over the camp.
- Won't last long, though.
- Neither will we.
- How will we make it?
- Maybe we shouldn't.
- If you're worried about me.
- If we've got anysurprises for each other,
(21:26):
I don't think we're in muchshape to do anything about it.
- Well, what do we do?
- Why don't we just waithere for a little while,
see what happens.
[END PLAYBACK]
[KISSING CLUB, "WATER IN THEPIPES"]
(21:52):
(SINGING) We don't need lights
Yeah, we can hear thewater in the pipes
FRED RASCOE (21:58):
Water in the Pipes by Kissing Club.
Before that, Cold Waterby Pedro's Basement.
And we started with Broken Pipeby Dumb Numbers and Melvins.
Those are songs aboutthings going right and wrong
with our infrastructure.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ALEX MCGEE (22:17):
This is Lost in the Stacks,
and our show today is calledmore bad luck and trouble.
We're talking aboutthe chilled water
emergency at GeorgiaTech last year
and what happenedto the library.
And in particular, we're goingto talk about the archives
because that's why I'm here.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, that's why (22:31):
undefined
you're here, to talkabout the water emergency.
[LAUGHTER]
We're singling out thearchives because, as you've
told us off air, therewas a lot more going on.
ALEX MCGEE (22:42):
High drama.
CHARLIE BENNETT (22:44):
Can you lay out for our listeners
the pieces of the archivesthat are in the Crosland tower?
ALEX MCGEE (22:50):
Yeah, so we have our archives reading room
on the first floorof Crosland tower.
And then, in the basement, wehave our archives classroom,
we have what is calledthe processing room,
and then, we haveour stacks, which
also includes ourtemperature controlled
vault. The stacksis where we keep,
(23:14):
usually, some of our mostvaluable collections,
same with the vault. They're themost used, the most high value.
We like to keep them--
CHARLIE BENNETT (23:22):
Most covered in mold spores.
ALEX MCGEE (23:24):
Yeah, exactly.
Definitely the ones you don'twant covered in mold spores.
And so when thishappened, I knew about it.
I knew on Friday, and I hadheard stuff over the weekend.
And we were getting emailswhere we were literally
getting the temperatureand humidity
percentages because we havehumidity monitors in our spaces
(23:49):
already.
The rest of thelibrary now has those,
but the archives always did.
And so we were veryaware of, generally,
when you go in the basementand the archive spaces
in the basement, you'relike, oh, it's cold in here.
You want a sweater.
And that was not the conditionsthat they were experiencing.
(24:11):
So we were seeing numbersas high as almost 80 degrees
in our basement.
And they quickly did bring indehumidifiers and particularly
in the stacks.
But our classroom, just a littlebackground, we did not always
have as much processing spacefor our student workers,
(24:32):
our interns over the summer, ourfaculty that do processing work,
like myself.
We've since gained thisspace, but last summer, we
were actually using theclassroom for these folks
to work over the summer.
So we had collectionsin the classroom,
and the classroom endedup being probably one
of the worst spaces we had.
CHARLIE BENNETT (24:48):
Because these are all in the basement.
ALEX MCGEE (24:50):
These are all in the basement.
And so, usually, you'relike, the basement's cool.
We don't have to worryabout the basement.
And the archivesstacks in particular
have their own system.
And so, the classroom--
I wasn't there inperson to experience it,
but I was told by ourassistant Dean Jody,
(25:12):
she told me that you couldwalk in and immediately tell
how high the humiditywas and that it smelled.
And so, for us, alarmbells are going off.
We were very worried aboutthe collections in there.
CHARLIE BENNETT: So when you first (25:24):
undefined
grasped how extensivethis was, what were you
worried about the most?
Was there a particularthing in the archives
or a particular kind of thing?
ALEX MCGEE (25:35):
The oldest stuff.
The oldest-- the old paper.
I mean, our rare books.
We have insurance on all thisstuff, but some of these,
I mean, it's literallyirreplaceable.
And I know this experiencealso highlighted
us working with a disasterrecovery kind of company
(25:58):
to get a plan in place to helpus get on the other side of what
was happening.
So Jody and Aisha, our AssociateDean that we report up to,
they met with these firmsand got each of them
to give us proposals.
I also remember Jody just beinglike, they could not grasp--
(26:19):
usually these people--these are the people
you respond whenyou have a leak.
They were strugglingto understand--
your what?
Is the humidity likethe chilled water?
What?
And so this was adifferent area for them.
And so what the plan ended upbeing is that they were like,
we bring in our own condensers.
We were prioritized for thelibrary and campus because
(26:42):
of the value ofstuff in our spaces.
CHARLIE BENNETT (26:45):
We can't just pack all that stuff up
and carry it out.
ALEX MCGEE (26:48):
Yeah, we would have had--
I mean, and the emails wewere getting when we were all
being told, don't come in, wewere also getting emails saying,
don't come in.
But if we need to getstuff out rapidly,
we are going to ask you tocome in work in the evening
when you're not inless ideal conditions.
(27:08):
So yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT: So it was real bad. (27:09):
undefined
But the nice thingabout all this
is that, ultimately, therewas no horrible bad outcome.
It kind of-- they fixed it,the folks on campus, mostly,
although I think they'restill doing certain tests
and adding pipes.
But I don't remembergetting any notice
about a disaster or some seriousdamage to the collections.
(27:34):
Do you all know aboutanything that happened?
FRED RASCOE (27:36):
Nothing in archives had to be discarded, was it?
ALEX MCGEE (27:38):
No, nothing was discarded.
We did have to have stuffprofessionally cleaned.
CHARLIE BENNETT (27:42):
Yeah, there was a lot of mitigation.
And Jody once told methat she thought it maybe
had just been too hot inthe library for the mold
to actually grow.
ALEX MCGEE (27:53):
I remember hearing the upper floors in Crosland
were in the 90stemperature wise.
So that's prettyhot for indoors.
CHARLIE BENNETT: And the one thing (28:01):
undefined
that is both funnyand depressing
is that RATS night, as we said,the freshman greeting event
was postponed to a day thatwould eventually be a snow day.
And so then it was postponedagain to this year.
So we missed out on RATS night.
FRED RASCOE (28:23):
I'll say that, although we came through this
situation mostly withminimal long lasting impact,
the reverberations are stillthere because we cannot get
into the ground floor entranceof our library because the--
two of the crucial pipesthat they were working on
(28:44):
were right outside.
They dug up the wholething, replaced the pipes.
For a long time, therewere pipes above ground
that were installedtemporarily that were actually
moving this chilledwater to the library.
And so there were thesegiant, I think, foot
diameter pipes blockingthe ground floor entrance
to the library.
(29:05):
Those are gone.
And now--
ALEX MCGEE (29:08):
It's looking close.
FRED RASCOE (29:09):
The ground floor entrance
looks almost ready to open.
Almost.
ALEX MCGEE (29:12):
I know I sent some angry emails last summer
about that entrancebeing closed.
So I could go tell us whenthat started, actually.
It predated the--
CHARLIE BENNETT (29:19):
Unless there's some construction that
inconveniences you.
This is Lost in theStacks, and today's show
was more bad luck in trouble.
Let's finish offwith some music.
MARLEE GIVENS (29:31):
File this set under HV551.P49.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- Musty book?
Quick tips.
Put dryer sheetsbetween several pages
and seal it in a plasticbag for a few days.
Nice.
(29:51):
[END PLAYBACK]
[SAVOY BROWN, "DOING FINE"]
That was Doing Fine by SavoyBrown, and before that Recover
by Second Still.
Songs about bouncing backand handling whatever fate
throws at you.
(30:12):
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT (30:21):
Today's episode is called more bad luck
and trouble.
We've been talking aboutthe chilled water emergency
at Georgia Tech last year.
So let's get off campus andend the show with shout outs
to other infrastructurebad luck and trouble.
For instance, just this weekI had a partial power outage
in my house in which aboutone third of my circuits
still had power while therest of the house and all
(30:42):
of our other neighborshad no power.
Very spooky.
My youngest nowbelieves in ghosts.
Fred, how about you?
FRED RASCOE (30:49):
OK, I'm going to make this very quick.
In April, we identified a leakcoming into our kitchen ceiling
as coming--
we identified the sourceof it, I should say,
as coming from the bathtubdrain line upstairs.
Fast forward to today, ouroven and our dishwasher
is in our dining area,our cabinets are removed,
(31:11):
my kitchen sinkis in the carport,
and we are currently waiting forthe asbestos remediation team
to come and removethe floor tiles.
ALEX MCGEE (31:20):
Oh, so you're in it right now.
FRED RASCOE (31:22):
That's our life right now.
MARLEE GIVENS (31:23):
I'm going to say Fred wins.
ALEX MCGEE (31:25):
Yeah, I can't top that.
MARLEE GIVENS (31:27):
I mean, so I'm on the board
of our homeowners associationor condo association.
And so the most common vexationthat we have to deal with
is leaks.
And I'll just say,long story short,
the biggest problem is thateveryone wants the board
to fix it for them.
How about you, Cody?
CODY (31:45):
You guys remember when the I-85 bridge caught on fire
and collapsed?
Best thing thatever happened to me.
I never drove to work inAlpharetta again after that day.
I started taking Martabecause I just refused
to have to deal with that.
And when the Martatrain would go over
that section of theinterstate, everyone
would just leanover into the window
and look at the trafficand all go, ooh.
(32:05):
So it was a nice collectivemoment on the Marta train.
Alex, what did you have?
ALEX MCGEE (32:10):
So much like Charlie, I
had power issues in my fairlynew construction house.
CHARLIE BENNETT: No one is immune. (32:17):
undefined
ALEX MCGEE (32:19):
Yeah, we had power surges that took out our TV.
And then, withinthe next six months,
took out the controlpanel of our range, which
the downside of having adigital screen, I guess,
on your appliances is thatthing can go really easy.
So that was alsoan expensive fix.
CHARLIE BENNETT: It's like Fred said, (32:39):
undefined
we're very close to justliving in caves once again.
OK, let's roll the credits.
But it is Friday the 13th, sokeep your head on a swivel.
(SINGING) Look out.
ALEX MCGEE (32:56):
Lost in the Stacks is
a collaboration between WREKAtlanta and the Georgia Tech
Library.
Written and produced byAlex McGee, Charlie Bennett,
Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.
MARLEE GIVENS (33:05):
Legal counsel and a box of replacement HEPA
filters were provided by theBurrus Intellectual Property Law
Group in Atlanta, Georgia.
CHARLIE BENNETT (33:12):
We need more of those all the time.
Special thanks to everybodywho helped in any way
when the chilled water went out.
And thanks, as always, toeach and every one of you
for listening.
MARLEE GIVENS (33:22):
Our web page is library.gatech.e
du/lostinthestacks, where you'llfind our most recent episode,
a link to our podcastfeed, and a web form
if you want to getin touch with us.
CHARLIE BENNETT (33:33):
On next week's show, it's a material umph show.
We're going to talkabout the notebook age
and thinking on paper.
FRED RASCOE (33:40):
All right, it's time for our last song today.
And speaking ofbad luck, trouble,
and summer, we alsolearned this week
that Brian Wilson passed away.
So Sly Stone earlier this week.
ALEX MCGEE (33:52):
Both 82.
FRED RASCOE (33:53):
Both 82 years old.
Man, talk about bad luck.
So in celebration ofBrian Wilson's life
and the search forendless summer,
hopefully with workingair conditioning,
let's close with aBeach Boys track.
This is Kokomo.
But no, I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding.
This is Don't WorryBaby, possibly
(34:17):
from one of the best 45singles ever released with I
Get Around on the other side.
Anyway, whatever bad luckand trouble comes your way,
don't worry, everythingwill work out all right.
Right?
Yeah, sure.
CHARLIE BENNETT (34:31):
Yeah, I mean, everything
will be fine eventually.
FRED RASCOE (34:33):
All right.
Or we'll just goand live in a cave.
Have a great weekend, everyone.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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