Hundreds of metres of books and archives of the research groups Philosophy of Science and History were lost in the flames of 20 November 2002.
The recovery will take an estimated twenty man-years. A start to this work was made last month: six recent UT-graduates, so-called reconstruction employees, have been appointed for a year to track down lost books, newspaper cuttings, and reports. The educational programmes mathematics, communication studies, and science, technology and society have also appointed reconstruction workers.
Boelie Elzen is research associate at the department Philosophy of Science and Technology and has been manager of the reconstruction team since October. Immediately after the fire the employees concerned were requested to make an estimate of matters lost. 'If we add up all those lists, it means twenty man years work. Repairing that damage is all but impossible, except when there is a group of people working on it full time. The insurance pays their salary. We have made a conscious decision to use recent graduates for this. As they know where the literature in their field can be found.'
Wijnand Rekers is one of the six reconstruction employees. He recently graduated from History. 'At this moment we are working on inputting lists of books and other archive material lost in the fire. Convenient, to have it in a database, because then we immediately see of there is duplication.Æ Books and articles are relatively easy to retrieve. More difficult is obtaining reports and newspaper cuttings. Rekers: 'For that we have to go to the archives of newspapers and companies.' The team differentiates the material to be tracked down. It gives priority to books over cuttings. 'We think that we can retrieve approximately three-quarters of the lost material', Elzen estimates.
The insurance companies have granted two years to achieve the reconstruction. For this team it means that they have to be ready by November next year. Elzen: 'Perhaps we have to hire more people for this work. For example from temping agencies to do the time-consuming copying.'
transl. DvA
