Beside the damages to the library, the bookstore located below had a foot of water cascade over all of their stock. Inadvertent fire sprinkler activation and roof leaks are also sources of water damage. Theft is perhaps the disaster you can do the most to avoid, but there is no absolute protection. The loss of equipment is usually not the real problem, but rather the loss of data and productivity. In one case, a researcher lost almost 20 years of data when a computer and back-up disks were taken.
Fires are less common, but small ones happen six or eight times each year.
Last summer, a monitor for a computer server overheated, starting a small fire in Photographic Services. The only thing actually burned was the computer cart, the server, and the monitor. But the damage was much more extensive. Soot covered everything in the suite, from computers to photographs to cameras. The rooms were uninhabitable, forcing the office to relocate while a specialized contractor cleaned up the smoke damage.