A hundred years ago fire was the grim reaper for bookstores and libraries. Both common and rare books were always at risk because heat was often provided by stoves and furnaces that employed open flames. These days such fires are rare but when they occur at the data center an organization relies on, such fires can temporarily shut down online access.
ILAB posted a notice on Wednesday, 10 March 2021 stating “The ILAB website is currently unavailable due to a fire that occurred at the OVH data center in Strasbourg on Wednesday, 10 March 2021.” As of 3/28/21 the site is still down.
If we can help we will.
The norm today is to maintain online presences on multiple servers thousands of miles apart. The delay implies their servers have been located at a single site.
