On Monday morning May 15th the library suffered through a flooding event. It was caused by a burst pipe in the sprinkler system above a study room on the second floor. The water poured into the study room, drained into the floor boxes and passed to the ceiling above one end of the book stacks. The ceiling tiles opened up and water poured onto the bookstacks, tables, and study carrels on the first floor.
Within ½ hour of discovery the wonderful M & O staff had assembled a work crew and draped the bookstacks in plastic, moved the carrels and tables out of the way and begun the process of water cleanup. We were very lucky and the topmost shelf of every section had no books on it and it served as a mini-umbrella to protect the books below. Sixty sections were inside the flooded area (a section is a 6 shelf unit.) We sent the truly soaked books to the landfill before they could produce a mold hazard. We have fans running 24 hours a day in the affected areas. Library staff have worked non-stop these past few days and are still checking the shelves for wet books.
The library will be replacing the ruined books with newer books in the affected subject areas. Damage to the facility appeared to be unsightly but fixable. If you come over to view the damage now you will find a clean space with air-drying under way. If you want to see images of the worst of the damage on Monday, go to this link http://libwww.cabrillo.edu/about/flood/
Students have been incredibly understanding and the library staff’s efforts to keep the building open while dealing with cleanup and planning issues is really commendable.
Johanna Bowen, Library Director
May 19, 2006
FLOOD IN THE LIBRARY-- SAVING DAMAGED BOOKS:
ART FROM WET BOOKS: Two of Cabrillo’s talented librarians, Jody Alexander and Laura Dickie, organized a show of art created from the books ruined in the flooding at the library on May 15th 2006. The artworks were on view in two exhibit cases at the library and on the corridor walls in Building 100 from September 29th - November 3rd 2006.