Can they save it? Maybe.
It depends on how the computer crashed and if the hard drive is part of it. If there is physical damage to the drive, you may not to be able to get anything off of it. It's gone either because the damage is too great to run the drive even by another computer or the damage hit right on the books. If there isn't physical damage, you might be able to pull it.
If you can't repair it:
If the drive is still good, easiest would be to have them pull it and put it in an external drive so you can plug it into a new computer.
If you can repair it, tell them to move the books and put them on disk or some other storage matter. The last time I did that with files, it cost me the price of the disk and they figured the cost into the time restoring the computer.
Always make up back up copies of all books you own be it SD, CD, flash drive. Never trust either your computer or the cloud to have them for you. I used an old hard drive I had from an old laptop that was made into an external plug and play drive for years with great success.