Tens of thousands of books and rare documents on the third floor of the University of Hawai'i-Manoa's Hamilton Library are being moved to safer locations after heavy rain leaked through the roof.

Dozens of rare Tibetan scrolls were among the items seriously damaged by water during the weekend. Library officials said it is too early to say if the scrolls, books and other rare items in the library's Asia collection are permanently damaged. However, they said they believe the leaks were discovered early enough to prevent irreversible damage.

The leaks came while the library is still dealing with damage from an October 2004 flood that ravaged its basement.

The latest damage was discovered Sunday after heavy rain Friday and Saturday in Manoa.

"It was like it was raining in the library," said Ann Rabinko, a reformatting specialist with the library's preservation department.

Rabinko and a small group of colleagues immediately evacuated books and rare documents that were seriously threatened, strung tarp across the ceiling to catch water and boxed other books that were damp or in danger of getting wet.

"We're still in the midst of the past disaster and now this," Rabinko said, shaking her head. "That's in the past for most people, but it's our present."

Hamilton Library suffered more than half of the $82 million in damage that occurred in the Halloween Eve 2004 flood.

That flood damaged about $34 million in rare documents, maps and books in the basement — more than 3 million items — and forced faculty, students and several departments to move.

The library's vast one-acre basement remains empty, with a $30 million reconstruction project set to begin in December or January, officials say.

Books seriously damaged by the weekend leaks were put in large freezers in the library's preservation department. They will have a chance to freeze dry and be salvaged, said Kyle Hamada, a conservation technician at the library.

Officials said it's too early to tell how much the rare Tibetan scrolls have been damaged.

Tens of thousands of other books are being packed into boxes and stored in 40-foot containers near the Korean Studies building on campus, Hamada said. Many of those books are either damp or were in danger of getting wet if they remained on the shelves.

"Right now, the main objective is to get things into refrigerators to prevent mold from growing," he said.

"Having dealt with the 2004 flood, our disaster response was pretty automatic."

ROOF BEING PATCHED

Crews have been trying since Monday to patch the library roof, which officials acknowledged needs reroofing. A $250,000 roofrepair was scheduled to begin next summer, said UH spokesman Gregg Takayama.

Many of the evacuated books will remain in storage until officials are certain the leaks have been fixed, Hamada said.

"This area had existing roof leaks," he said, referring to Phase I of Hamilton Library, which was built in 1965.

"Leaks have been a longstanding problem," he said.

In fact, buckets to catch leaks have been a common sight over the years on Hamilton's third floor.

After the October 2004 flood, library officials established an extensive disaster plan in case of another emergency.

Some staff from the preservation department, including Rabinko and Hamada, had just conducted an emergency response workshop for community members on Saturday — the day before the leaks were discovered.

They had spent the day instructing librarians and others who maintain collections in ways to respond to disasters.

"It was so ironic. The very next day we had to respond to a disaster," Rabinko said.

IMPROVEMENTS COMING

Recovery over the past three years has been slow at the library, but there are signs of progress. An 18-month project to completely rebuild the basement floor will begin in December or January, said Paula Mochida, interim university librarian.

Construction of an adjacent building to house the library's electrical system is expected to begin any time, she said.

The 2004 flood also displaced offices, faculty and students who used to call the basement home.

The Library and Information Science program, which oversees about 150 graduate students, was one of the largest occupants. The basement also housed the library's collection services and the government documents and maps collection.

In February 2006, UH received about $21.2 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to cover damage.

Of that, $13.2 million was slated to replace thousands of books, maps, government documents and historic photos destroyed or damaged.

Reach Loren Moreno at lmoreno@honoluluadvertiser.com.