By Alice Waugh
The Lincoln Public Library has reopened after a New Year’s Day leak caused water damage, but the reference section will remain closed until inspections and repairs can take place.
The problem was apparently caused by a faulty sprinkler head in the turret room next to the main entrance, said Barbara Myles, the library’s director. There was no water above the ceiling, indicating that the pipe itself did not break.
The library’s new fire suppression system contacts the Lincoln Fire Department whenever a sprinkler or smoke alarm goes off, and firefighters responded quickly and turned off the water, but not before it flooded the holiday materials in the turret room and the floor in the adjacent reference section. The ground-floor reference books and computers were not damaged, “but it looks like we may lose that carpet,” Myles said. The power to that area has also been shut off because water leaked through floor outlets and into the staff lunch room below the turret room through lighting fixtures. Some of the books and movies in the basement, though undamaged, are inaccessible to the public because they are in an area that’s been closed off, though staff can retrieve titles if asked, she said.
Library staff were doing an inventory on Monday to determine the exact extent of damage and working with a flood service firm and the town’s insurance carrier to “dry things out, salavage what we can and replace what we need to replace,” Myles said.
“We were lucky,” she added. “If the leak had been in the children’s room ceiling, we would have lost a lot more.”
Visit the library’s website for periodic updates.
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