Jake Epp Library has officially wrapped up major renovations following extensive water damage.
Library Director Aubrey Walker says staff came in one Saturday morning in 2023 to water pouring from the ceiling.
"Which is not something you ever want to see in a library. It ended up being a device in our ceiling. I believe it was part of a humidifying dehumidifying unit to keep that humidity regular and something had just, I think a hose had popped off or something, and it was just pouring everywhere. So that was that was very sad."
The water made its way through the ceiling, damaging several bays of shelving, and even brought parts of the ceiling down with it.
"There were chunks of ceiling tile that fell down onto the shelving units and dented the top of the shelving unit and of course it got so many books in our adult fiction wet and then there started to be this pooling standing water as it grew, even though we got it turned off fairly quickly, it was just pouring.”
In addition to books being covered with ceiling plaster, the humidity ended up causing significant damage to books as well.
With an insurance claim in place, the library began the long process of repairs and replacements.
"We lost 1,602 books, so that was about 10% of our adult fiction collection," Walker says. "Our carpet, of course, was damaged. They tried cleaning it, but the water damage still kept reappearing, so they decided that they would replace the whole thing. And since there's no good stopping points in the library that they could just cut off, they replaced all of the carpet in all of the library. So that ended up being a benefit. We're trying to look on the bright side here, we got new carpet, but we would have rather it had not been damaged in the first place."
While replacing the carpet, many shelves were moved around, making it tricky for staff and customers. However, Walker says they expected it to be more disruptive than it was.
"The people that were doing it were very communicative, they were very helpful, and they actually moved really fast. It was a net positive that we had great people to work with, but at the same time they were moving every single shelf. They moved every single book in this library."
Although the team has been working hard to put everything back in place, Walker admits some books might still be out of order.
"We apologize if the library is in a bit of disarray. We're working our way through. We're trying to shelf read and make sure every book is in its right home and it's not right now, we're aware."
Despite the disruption, the library took the opportunity to make some layout changes.
"Now that we're moving things back to their proper place officially, we're spreading out our adult nonfiction as it should be, and we're choosing to use some of those shelves to create more growth in our juvenile section," Walker explains.
Along with a rearranged layout, the flooring also received an update.
"The flooring was a little bit of change. They did recreate the carpet that we had because we're still keeping the ones in our offices that didn't get replaced.”
Walker notes that the new uniform flooring gives the library a new feel.
"We're actually finding it makes the library look bigger without that differentiation between the children's section and everywhere else. It just kind of opens the space up."
Now that renovations are complete, the library staff is looking forward to focusing on future projects and programs.
"Now that we are hitting a normal stride, we can look forward to, not only a return to normality, but that means what else can we do? What else can we add on? Where else can we go? We're always looking forward."
Despite the challenges, Walker expresses her gratitude for the support of the community throughout the process.
"I'm just really happy about how our patrons in general were so kind and gracious when all of this was going on. We tried to keep them as updated as we could on our Facebook and our website but things were changing daily sometimes, so they were just very kind with how everything happened and I'm really grateful."
With files from Corny Rempel