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Daisy Porter
Daisy Porter

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News Release

Contact: Tom Parisi, NIU Office of Public Affairs
(815) 753-3635

November 30, 2005

Katrina survivor's tale is one for the books at NIU

DeKalb, Ill. — The place where Daisy Porter worked is now desolate, its once busy parking lot littered with trash and dead fish.

For two years, Porter had worked as an assistant manager at the East New Orleans Regional Branch Library. About 1 ½ miles south of Lake Pontchartrain, the library suffered extensive damage from Hurricane Katrina and won't likely reopen for another year. In the hurricane's aftermath, 90 percent of the employees in the New Orleans public library system were laid off.

Porter was one of them, but this holiday season she can count her blessings. She is working at Northern Illinois University's Founders Memorial Library, where she was appointed as a Visiting Katrina Fellow. University Libraries created the six-month post to provide assistance to one of the many New Orleans librarians displaced by the hurricane.

“We wanted to do our part to help the survivors of the disaster,” says Mary Munroe, an associate dean at University Libraries. “But as it turns out, we're getting much in return. Daisy is a talented librarian with specialized expertise that we are putting to good use.”

A specialist in children's and young-adult literature, Porter is identifying and removing vintage children's books from the library's shelves so they can be placed in the rare books collection. Some of the works date as far back as 1845. She also assists in the reference department and with the library's digitization projects.

Porter, a Chicago native, earned her master's degree in library science from the University of Illinois at Champaign and took her first job in New Orleans. She evacuated the Big Easy on Aug. 28, a day before Katrina arrived. It would be more than two months before she returned to the city to learn what had happened to her home, which sustained only minor damage.

While the Uptown neighborhood where she lived was largely unscathed, other parts of the city weren't as fortunate. In the more devastated areas, Porter passed by houses with numbers spray painted on the doors, indicating how many bodies were found inside.

“It was weird going back,” she says. “I was surprised to see how some parts of the city are revitalized. I even ran into a traffic jam. Then you go into other areas, and that's where you cry.”

The city's library system was devastated as well. The Times Picayune recently reported that only three of 13 libraries have reopened since the disaster. Porter discovered that her former workplace was in a shambles. Not only were there dead fish in the parking lot, but inside the building book shelves remained overturned. The books that had escaped flooding damage were ruined by mold.

“There was no power, no traffic, no life and no people,” says Porter, who had to wear a protective mask to reenter her old workplace. “It was hard to see.”

Porter says she did have a chance to get her job back a month after evacuating the city.

“I was offered the opportunity to be one of the people who stayed,” she says. “But I had to make that decision overnight, before I knew if my house and neighborhood were OK. So I had to turn down the opportunity.”

Through a Web log created by New Orleans library staffers, Porter learned that three universities were offering temporary positions to librarians displaced by the hurricane. Two of those universities were in California and the third was NIU, where her brother Joe is a junior studying political science.

“I am delighted to be here,” Porter says, adding that she's in the process of sending out resumes for a permanent position. “If I have the chance to be rehired in New Orleans, yes, I would go back.”

She predicts the Big Easy will rebound.

“Not only should they rebuild, but no matter what anyone else thinks, they will,” Porter says. “The citizens of New Orleans are stubborn and creative people.”

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