Sherri McSorley is pretty sure she and her staff are going to have endure some discomfort at some point. However, librarian McSorley is ready to endure that in order to get the Lumberton Public Library’s roof repaired.
The Lamar County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to accept bids on the repairs at their next meeting Monday. Leaks in the library’s roof has already caused some damage, but McSorley said it could be worse.
“Ours hasn’t gotten that bad yet,” she said. “But if they don’t hurry up, my whole Teen Room will be ruined. That’s where the worst part is.”
McSorley worked at the library for five years before replacing Melinda Carli, who retired after 12½ years at the library. McSorley said the latest storms have not been that detrimental.
“They closed in the back porch and made it the Teen Room,” she said. “They have taken down a lot of the panels. It was leaking, but the last few storms that came through we’ve been lucky that it hasn’t done any more damage. I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten really bad back there. When we know that it’s going to be bad, we pull up a rug and we have bean bag chairs back there for the teens.”
The library books have more protected shelves in the Teen Room than the regular shelves, McSorley said.
“The books are in metal shelves too, not like the open shelves we have all over the library,” she said. “For right now, if something were to fall from the ceiling, the books would be all right because we have metal shelves. They’ve got to get it done or it’s going to be trouble.”
Logan Edwards’ Easley, who works at the library, said moisture is getting to be a problem in the Teen Room. Moisture can lead to mold.
“You’re losing humidity control back there now,” he said. “You go back there now, and you can feel it.”
“You’ve got the cement floor and it’s wet,” McSorley said. “I went in there and you could tell.”
The floor apparently didn’t settle straight, and the metal shelves have to be blocked off to keep them from rolling.
One bright spot for the library this spring has been the addition of gardening tools and seed packets. A grant provided the library with the materials to loan out the tools and give away the seeds.
“They are doing very well actually,” McSorley said. “We have had four of the big tools checked out and we’ve had a few bags that were brought back. Altogether, I think they checked out six or seven of those. Almost all of the seeds are gone. They are free, and we just let them pour a little bit in a bag.”
