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Two significant developments at library

The main branch of Louisville's library is recovering from this year's devastating flooding, but its still not business as usual.

Monday, two significant developments in the restoration of the library took place.  One was the installation of a new $130,000 chiller, part of the library's new heating and air conditioning system.

With the help of a giant crane, crews removed the three-ton chiller, which was left inoperable as a result of the flash flooding.  After it's moved out, the new chiller is brought in and carefully put into place.

The library has been using a temporary system to heat and cool.  The new permanent system should be much better than the old one, as Assistant Library Director Melanie Lilly explains:  "It's energy efficient.  We expect to save some money on energy, which we're really looking forward to, especially in this budget climate.  So it will be a good thing."

The second significant development is the re-opening of the library's Job Shop.  It offers job and career information, and is now located on the second floor of the library.

"We were averaging about fifty people a day," says Paul Burns of library community relations, "and we are not open all day, so it's a pretty good amount of people who were coming in.  And, of course, the job situation hasn't changed in our economy, so we're hopeful people will come back.  We've had lots of people asking when we are going to re-open, so we're excited to be able to do this now."

The August 4th flash flooding resulted in more than six feet of water in the basement of the library.  The entire building was closed for 23 days.  The basement is still closed while repairs are underway to restore mechanical systems like the elevators.

Lilly says, "We don't have elevators to the second floor still; if a patron comes in and needs a book and it's on the second floor, if they can't do the stairs we will go up and get if for them, so they've really been going the extra mile."

Insurance is expected to cover most of the cost of repairs.  The library sustained $7 million in damage from the flash flooding.  It will be at least New Year's before everything there is back to normal.