Power was restored to the Central Library of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, just a couple of blocks from the fire, though it remained closed Tuesday. Facilities and IT teams are working in the library building to ensure it can be reopened Wednesday, said Meghan McCorkell, chief of marketing, communications, and strategy for Enoch Pratt Free Library.
The Central Library is the State Library Resource Center, which is the State Library for Maryland, so its librarians and staff work with other libraries around the state to provide resources.
The Central Library’s fiber lines provide Internet through the statewide Sailor network. Sailor, a project developed by Maryland public libraries, provides broadband Internet, IT and web services, as well as other technology resources or solutions, to Maryland librarians and residents, according to the State Library Resource Center website.
Due to the complications from the fire, library systems across the region were affected by Internet outages that prevented access to digital products, databases and other services. The Central Library worked with Comcast to restore the fiber lines, with the Internet back up and running through Sailor by Tuesday afternoon, McCorkell said.
“It’s quite an impressive network, and it really is very reliable and works incredibly well. And I guess when an underground fire happens, that makes things challenging for us,” said Mary Hastler, CEO of the Harford County Public Library.
Hastler has been working in libraries for nearly 30 years, she said, and this was the first time an outage has occurred to this extent. She noted that a Sailor backup system is being worked on.
Libraries in Harford County were open Tuesday, but the library system’s website was down, so people couldn’t access databases, e-books, online courses, e-movies and other services, and interlibrary loans were also paused. Still, Hastler said it was “like opening day for summer reading” Monday as people came inside looking for help with things they couldn’t do online.
“We have amazing support in the county and our customers who use the library, whether it’s virtually or in person, and it’s always so rewarding when people are patient when something like this happens, which is not usual, and they all kind of band together,” Hastler said.
The public library systems in Howard and Queen Anne’s counties were both open Tuesday, though not without Internet complications. According to a post from the Howard County Library System on Facebook late Monday afternoon, customers couldn’t access the website and catalog, but books were still able to be checked out. By Tuesday afternoon, systems were back up and running, the library posted on social media.
“We are just as relieved as our customers,” said Christie Lassen , director of communications for Howard County Library System, after the systems were restored.
In Queen Anne’s County, where e-products are heavily used, some progress was made, said Janet Salazar, director of the library system. But people couldn’t use the public computers and the Wi-Fi was down, as well as wireless printing. The integrated library system and the phones were running on hot spots, Salazar said.
Power had been restored to all customers affected by outages due to the fire except for buildings between 322 and 328 N Charles Street, a Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. spokesperson said, as it would be unsafe to restore power due to the damage.
Only “a handful” of customers still experienced outages after Sunday evening, the spokesperson said, and most had power by early Monday morning. Power came back on at the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. Courthouse for the Circuit Court of Baltimore around 6:34 a.m. Tuesday morning. Both of the circuit court’s courthouses and the Juvenile Justice Center all resumed normal operations Tuesday, according to the website.
The Maryland Department of Information Technology, which provides service to state agencies, counties and municipalities through a state-owned fiber network, said its network didn’t have any outages due to the fire. Verizon, which has a manhole outside its building on North Charles Street, said no customers were impacted, and no equipment was damaged.
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