The Galion Public Library is now open

You may have noticed that the Galion Pub­lic Library has been closed most of this week. You may have gone to the door, just to find out that it was locked. You may have called and got­ten a machine answer­ing. Just what has been going on at the Library?

As it turns out, the Library had a mas­sive fail­ure of their cir­cu­la­tion sys­tem Tues­day night. The staff noticed right away and noti­fied Polaris, the com­pany that main­tains both the soft­ware and the hard­ware for the cir­cu­la­tion system.

After dis­cus­sion with the board pres­i­dent, Direc­tor Vicki Eck­en­rod closed the Library for the evening and noti­fied both the Inquirer and Galion­Live that the Library would be closed for repairs on Wednes­day. At that time, the Library fully expected to be open on Wednes­day after­noon or at the lat­est, Wednes­day evening.

Unfor­tu­nately that was not the case. The ini­tial prob­lem turned into another prob­lem. Parts were ordered; too few parts were brought in, and reload­ing the backup data took longer than expected. All of this caused delay after delay for the Library. From Wednes­day morn­ing on, the Library expected to be open soon. Staff were put on call all dur­ing this time and expected to come in at any time. Direc­tor Eck­en­rod said that if the Library had known they were going to be closed that long, they would have made arrange­ments to open so that other activ­i­ties could con­tinue. She was frus­trated as well with the con­tin­u­ally chang­ing esti­mate of when they could open.

Eck­en­rod wants every­one to know that all library mate­ri­als due from Tues­day on have been given an extra week so no one will be get­ting fined if their items were due then.

The Library Board and Staff know how much the com­mu­nity depends on the Library. At the last Board meet­ing, as reported in the Galion Inquirer, the Board had dis­cussed replac­ing the aging machine in prepa­ra­tion for a new Polaris upgrade expected later this year. Plans have been made so that this sit­u­a­tion does not hap­pen again. The Library intends to replace the server more often and expects the newer machine to have bet­ter ways of mon­i­tor­ing the con­di­tion of the inte­rior parts.

This was a sit­u­a­tion that the Library sin­cerely regrets hap­pen­ing and is thank­ful for all the con­cern and patience that their patrons and staff have shown dur­ing this crisis.

Eck­en­rod has one final word: THE LIBRARY IS NOW OPEN!

Posted by Staff Reports on Jan 27 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.