Following months of building repairs, the doors are open and pages are being turned once more at the Flin Flon Public Library.
The library officially reopened its doors August 21 after months of repairs to the building that contains it, officially known as the Centennial Building. The library was closed since May 24 to accommodate the repairs and renovations.
“I’m so excited - it’s nice to be back,” said library administrator Lisa Slugoski a day following the reopening. Staff members and volunteers came in to restock the shelves with books before the doors were officially opened.
“I’m looking forward to seeing all the patrons again.”
The library’s most recent closure was the second such pause it underwent in recent years - the first was in late 2022 through into early 2023, closing the library for two months to repair the Centennial Building’s north wall and roof. Those repairs were done with the knowledge that more work still needed to be done later - that time came back in May, when the second closure began.
Several library programs that were put on hold during the closure will be restored. The library is already open again for checking out or returning books and for interlibrary loan. Kids’ reading programs, including Read to Me and 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten, will be starting up again in the fall, as may the library’s involvement in Culture Days next month and in October.
“We’ve got a bunch of other stuff in the works that we’re just kind of fine-tuning. We actually haven’t had any programming since when we closed the first time - we’ve kind of been on hold waiting for construction,” said Slugoski.
Inside, beams in the building’s ceilings were reinforced and new beams were fabricated in some places. The library’s north wall, which was left unfinished after the first closure, is now closed-in.
“The current project that has wrapped up was a project to ensure the structure of the building itself was safe. That was the initial reason for us to do that work. That has been completed,” said City chief administrative officer Lyn Brown.
Like the last round of repairs, there is still work to do, but City leadership is not ruling out the idea of doing the work on weekends to keep the library open. Compared to the first two closures, the third - and hopefully, final - round of fixes will be relatively minor, conducting fixes on the building’s inside ceiling and on the library’s bathrooms. The work will likely take place this winter - the bathrooms will be made handicap-accessible and the City has received grant funding to make that happen.
“We can stay open now until later on in the winter, then we can do more later because that's all inside work. We can do that during the winter - and this gives people the opportunity back to utilize the library for a while,” said Brown.
“It’s safe now,” added city councillor Bill Hanson, the chair of the City’s engineering services committee.
“I must say, today, an employee of mine’s little girl came up to me - she’s four - and I mentioned to her dad that the library was reopening. She screamed for joy because she’s been missing the library for the last few months.”
“I’m excited to introduce some new stuff for kids and we’ve got some great stuff coming,” said Slugoski.
“I had people stop me all the time, at the grocery store or wherever, asking ‘When’s the library opening?’ all the time. It was awesome to see the support - sometimes, you think, ‘it’s a library. Nobody’s going to miss it,’ but it’s nice to know that we were missed.”
The library is hosting a discard book sale through to the end of September - the sale is usually hosted in the summer, but bumped the sale through to the fall due to the closure. Each book is available for a donation - as many books as needed for any value donation. Library staff will also be running a fundraising draw later in the fall.
