FILLMORE : Retrofitted Library Back in Business

Six weeks after a 6.8 earthquake sent 30,000 books tumbling onto the floor, the Fillmore Public Library has quietly reopened for business.

“Well, we didn’t want to publicize it because we’re still getting everything back together,” head librarian Betty Cook said. “But we are so happy. I thought this day would never come.”

Stacks that buckled and toppled in January are now bolted to the floor and the walls, so tightly that Cook promises the building would have to tilt sideways before the bookshelves would come down again. Books trucked out immediately after the quake to allow crews to retrofit the building are now mostly back in place and ready for readers to check out.

Cook, however, said some library users have been doing so for weeks. “If we had something a reader wanted, then we let them come by and take it after the earthquake,” she said.

Crews from the California Conservation Corps helped the library move the books into storage and then back out after a private firm came in and reinforced the bookshelves, Cook said. About 30 volunteers from the community also came by last week to help file books, she said.

The library is operating on its regular, pre-quake hours: Mondays and Tuesdays from 3 to 7 p.m., and Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 1 to 5 p.m. For more information, call the library at 524-3355.