Hi, David. Sorry to hear about the spill. If the Powerbook was running when the spill occurred, and especially if the user didn't immediately unplug it from AC power and remove its main battery, it's possible that something inside was shorted out and damaged.
It takes a long time — at least a couple of days — for a wet keyboard to dry completely. There are just too many tiny crannies for water to get into; you can't possibly get at them all to dry them thoroughly. Air drying is the only solution, and trying to restart the Mac before everything is really dry can damage things just as easily as they can be damaged at the moment of the original spill.
If the coffee had milk, cream or sugar in it, the keyboard will probably never be the same again, and will likely have to be replaced. Look very carefully below the outer edges of the keyboard, where moisture is most likely to have gotten below it onto the logic board and other components. If you find any indication at all that that occurred, the Powerbook is going to need professional service. For a description of what that will entail, see
this article from a highly respected Mac specialty repair shop.
With respect to the hard drive and any data you may need to salvage from it, rest easy: HD cases are very tightly sealed, and even if the HD had gotten drenched, it's very unlikely that anything would have leaked inside to damage the data stored there. If worse comes to worst and the Powerbook isn't even worth repairing, you should be able to remove the hard drive and copy the data to another computer with little trouble.
