Recovery as a professional in the library
Kaori Shirahama Librarian Sub leader
Hideo Tsumura Director
Chica Kitajima Librarian Leader
A lot of aftershocks occurred. Were you concerned about safety?
The safety of the staff was most important, so we had everyone wear a helmet.
The books that fell to the floor were wiped clean one by one, and the books which caught the broken glass were carefully cleaned with a brush page by one page.
These were due to voluntary proposals by the staff.
Removal of the piece of glass was hard. The ceiling glass smoke prevention barrier fell down.
Since the ceiling is so high that it does not enter the field of vision, we did not think that glass which is usually overhead.
I feel frightened when I think that an earthquake may occur when the users are there. Recently there are things that can not be broken, such as smokeless hanging walls made of glass fiber, so I think that it will be important to introduce such things in the library.
Due to the effort of all of you, after half a month the library was able to get to the temporary opening.
I think that it is very difficult to judge when to resume in the event of such a disaster. Since it is a public facility, it is a necessity to secure users' safety from day one. Also the safety of our staff is the top priority while preparing for opening . We can not force them to return.
So, as the beginning, I focused only on children's book corners and newspaper corners.
I decided to give priority to the children's book corner because I thought that it is healing that is necessary for everyone who had a traumatic experience.
Also, since providing information to the user is also an important role of the library, we installed a newspaper corner temporarily. All the newspapers were used frequently.
After this earthquake, what will you be conscious of as a library in the future?
I tell users that the library is a place to use 'places', 'people', and 'materials'. "People" are the staff. You can demonstrate your ability at any time as long as you have the ability to provide services to users with sufficient reference capabilities as library staff.
KUMAMOTO JONAN CITY LIBRARY
Address: 451-9 Maibara Jonan City Minami-ku Kumamoto
Opening hours: M-S 9:30-20:00 Sun. 9:30-18:00
URL: http://jonan-library.com/
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