Friends, The library in Walton suffered extensive damage during the flood this summer, to the tune of about $380,000. Much of the damage was to the basement area, where the genealogy collection, microfilm collection, and microfilm readers were located. There is no FEMA assistance, and only a $5000 grant from NYS and another $1000 grant from the NY Library Association. I recently contacted the staff there to see if I could donate something. Below is their reply. I understand that they are relocating the genealogy collection to the attic area of the building, and that some of the collecton was saved by the staff before the flood waters reached the building. Best wishes, Carolee Inskeep Sally Cranston, Director of the Ogden Library writes, "We had the most complete collection of Walton Reporters, Blade and Chronicle going back to the 1800s. The company we worked with, Proquest, has copies of what we lost. The cost of replacing these would be $26,235. What we really need is money. Annie Sulger, who works in the Historical Room is going to e-mail you with more info. about specific books etc. that were lost." Annie Sulger wrote, "At the present time I'm not sure what all we have and what we need to replace ... Any family genealogies are welcome ... For the last three months I've been working on drying books, copying what we had saved and now we are collecting as much as possible .... We can get dates of deaths and some of the stats up to 1996 from our indexes that some of us have compiled but not many obits ... We had a card file, but that was in the basement too and is gone." If you would like to make a cash or genealogical donation, you can send it to: William B. Ogden Free Library 42 Gardiner Place Walton, New York 13856-1399 t: 607.865.5929 See also: http://www.thedailystar.com/news/stories/2006/09/13/librar6.html See also: http://www.thedailystar.com/news/stories/2006/07/08/mm5.html