It's Raining, It's Pouring...in the Library

Not good. The deluge that flooded much of town last night overloaded our old ceiling as well, right over such unimportant authors as Eric Carle and Lauren Child. As turtles, we think all that excess water is great, but apparently it's not such a good thing for books.

Quick action on the staff's part saved a great many books from being ruined, but come morning we were faced with very squishy carpet under what was becoming very squishy wood shelves. We (and by we, we mean we watched the YA Librarian and Custodian) moved three ranges of shelves to the program room - then made quick signs cancelling programs - then dismantled shelves, extracted water from carpet, and answered the same questions twelve times from the patrons who missed the cancellation signs.

Well, we needed to shelf-read anyways, right? And hadn't we talked about painting those walls? Always try to look on the bright side. While holding your breath, because that carpet smells worse than the teens' feet did Tuesday night.

Hopefully, tomorrow we will be back on track with some new reviews. In the meantime, a side note to all those publishers we have been contacting about review copies: this would be a REALLY good time to send us your surplus picture books. Especially if the author's last name starts with a "C".