[Michlib-l] Fire at Oxford Public Library

[Bryan Cloutier]

Colleagues:

We had a fire at Oxford Public Library Tuesday evening.  One of our rooftop units and insulation caught on fire and very quickly filled the building with smoke.  I am extremely proud of my team who all acted quickly and got everyone out of the building safely.  Our Fire Department is amazing and were able to isolate fire damage to exterior, but it goes without saying that the building will be closed indefinitely.  Although the structure is sound, within about a minute and a half almost all of our 24,000 sq. ft. facility was completely consumed by smoke.  The level of smoke damage is far more reaching than we first thought.  We have started the mitigation process and are working with teams of people who, I am confident know what they are doing.

These are the things they do not teach us in Library school, but when it happens everyone seems to pull together and gets the work done.  I am very thankful that I was still in the building at the time of the incident and extremely grateful that I can send this note from my office at the library.  Tangible items can be replaced, but people are priceless-and most importantly no one was hurt.

To those of you who want to help-I know it's a lot to ask, but if you have any of our books on loan in your library and you can hold on to them right now, please do.  We need some time to sort things out here.  Also, to all of our neighbors, please welcome our residents into your libraries as though they are your own until we can do this ourselves.  Rough estimates at this point are several weeks out before we can welcome the public back into our building.  We are working through logistical and construction timelines as some ceilings will also need to be removed and replaced.  The whole building is impacted, but Youth Services seems to have taken the brunt of it.  We have also requested that TLN suspend delivery as to avoid additional smoke exposure.

Regards,

Bryan J. Cloutier
Director & CEO, Oxford Public Library

Oxford Public Library
530 Pontiac Street
Oxford MI 48371

248.628.3034 x 211


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