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Branch’s Future Uncertain after Mold Destroys CollectionThe board of Lenawee County (Mich.) Library voted 4–1 November 20 to dispose of the entire collection of 8,760 books and 2,054 magazines in the Ridgeway branch because they have been contaminated by mold. Teresa Calderone, director of the system since August 1, told American Libraries she discovered the problem on her first visit to the branch shortly after she was hired. She found the building in such poor condition that books had become moist and were molding. The building had been left open to the elements over a five-year period with no heat, air conditioning, or running water. “There was a hole in the roof where a chimney had been,” she said. “Squirrels and mice had gotten in, and the books were covered with two and three different colors of mold.” Calderone and a work crew pulled the entire collection from the building September 29 and spent 45 hours checking each book and magazine to see what was salvageable. They came up with 128 books, and even those were ultimately deemed unworthy of preservation by the board. “There were some older books,” she said, “novels and such, but none were valuable. The encyclopedias were from the 1950s and ’60s.” A recycling company emptied the boxes of books from the garage at the library headquarters in Adrian on November 21 and hauled them off for processing into new paper. Despite the obvious problems at the Ridgeway branch, objections have been raised to the board’s decision, most notably by Rose Dejonghe, a 34-year county employee who has been involved in running the branch for 48 years. “I’m pretty discouraged. I’m 84 years old. I’d like to keep this for the rest of the community,” she said in the November 24 Adrian Daily Telegraph. “What good is a library without any books?” In response to a number of op-ed pieces claiming that important local materials were destroyed along with the rest of the collection, Calderone emphasized that “there was no family history and no local history in what was taken from the library.” “They’re just throwing it all down the tube,” Dejonghe countered. “Most people do not have any respect for anything old.” She told the newspaper that when she saw from her home next door that the books were being removed, she retrieved “a book containing local historical documents including records on the founding and operation of [the library].” At this point, said Calderone, the future of the Ridgeway library is uncertain at best. Built in the 1880s, the building is, by contract, the responsibility of the township, not the county. “But no one used the library except [Dejonghe] and her family,” Calderone observed, “about 15 people.” No money has been offered to repair the historic building and little or none of the collection was in circulation. The vote to dispose of the books came after a lengthy debate on options for returning the books to Ridgeway residents who had offered to take them. The molded books could cause health problems or infect homes with damaging mold, Calderone warned, and the board agreed. She noted that not one person from Ridgeway came to the board meeting. Posted December 4, 2007. |
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