NORTHRIDGE : Workers Race Clock to Repair CSUN Library

The workers scrambling around-the-clock to complete repairs to the quake-ravaged Oviatt Library at Cal State Northridge have no multimillion-dollar bonus speeding them toward an Aug. 15 target date.

But the prospect of getting more than a million books back in circulation in time for the fall semester seems to be incentive enough. “The challenge and sense of mission these people share is really clear,” university spokesman Bruce Erickson said. “They are going to do whatever it takes.”

Since the end of the spring semester, when a campus survey revealed that students and faculty wanted repairs to the Oviatt to be of highest priority, double and triple shifts of workers have toiled 24 hours a day, seven days a week, completing repairs to the building’s core in a fraction of the time it would usually take. Gimmicks such as T-shirts inscribed with the number of remaining days, Mickey Mouse ears with a number on each ear and a cake marked with the correct number of candles remind the nearly 100 workers daily of the approaching deadline. Gimmicks aside, there’s not much time for fooling around.

“We all have a really serious attitude here about keeping on schedule,” said Doug Davis, associate dean of the library. “They’re constantly doing everything they can to do things as fast as they can.”

In addition to repairing a section of the roof overhang that collapsed in the quake, workers are replacing ceiling tiles, installing carpet and repainting the interior. About half of the 1.1 million volumes in the library’s collection ended up on the floor after the Jan. 17 quake and will eventually have to be reshelved.

University officials have set Aug. 26 as a preliminary date for a ribbon-cutting ceremony and expect major repair work to be completed by Aug. 15 so that books can be shelved and furniture replaced before the reopening.

“When we lost use of the Oviatt, it was the most crushing blow of the earthquake,” Erickson said. “The library is the center point around which everything revolves.”