On the early morning of October 3, 1960, Col. Edmund H. Lang, director of what was then the Waterways Experiment Station (WES), awoke to the frantic knocking of William Bache, bringing devastating news — the WES headquarters building was engulfed in flames.
Despite rapid response by local firefighters, the fire consumed nearly everything, including irreplaceable resources from what had been one of the premier technical libraries in the Southeast.
More than $1.7 million in facilities and equipment was lost, along with approximately 75,000 volumes of critical technical literature and a meticulously curated 275,000-card reference system, essential to the researchers’ daily work.
But this crisis would reveal the resilience and dedication at the heart of WES — and especially its librarians. Under the leadership of librarians Alan G. Skelton and Marie Spivey, the rebuilding process began almost immediately. Although the collection was nearly decimated, thousands of volumes remained safely checked out across 40 states, offering a starting point for recovery.
Support poured in from across the globe. Engineering libraries worldwide, including the prestigious Delft University Library in the Netherlands, sent valuable materials. The Office of the Chief of Engineers allocated funding, allowing librarians and their team to rebuild and restore the repository of knowledge.
Today, that spirit of resilience and dedication continues through the ERDC library — officially the Information Science and Knowledge Management Branch (ISKM).
ISKM provides comprehensive resources to assist researchers and engineers at every stage — from accessing historical and current publications to technical editing and publication support. Its expansive collection now contains more than 300,000 print items, more than a million digital articles, citations and books accessible online, and approximately 15,000 digitized reports housed in ERDC’s Knowledge Core repository.
Through expert curation and innovative knowledge management practices, ISKM ensures research data and publications remain accessible, supporting ERDC’s strategic goals in research excellence, knowledge dissemination and long-term preservation.