Staff at the Strathcona County Library still have a lot of work to do, but plan to reopen next month.

“Things are mostly on the right shelf but probably not in the right order so our mammoth task is to get 200,000 things in order so people can find them and borrow them when we open the doors,” said Sharon Siga, Strathcona County Library CEO.

On Nov. 6, 2018, RCMP said 21-year-old Kane Kosolowsky set off an explosion in the parkade, returned to his vehicle and fatally shot himself. Fire from the first explosion ignited a gas tank and caused a second explosion.

The incident forced the closure of the county building, which included the library.

“If you touched any surface there would have been a fine layer of grit, so it was soot that settled on all of the surfaces.”

A cleaning company was hired to clean every single book and surface in the library.

“Once they had cleaned everything initially and they vacuumed every item with a special Hepa vacuum, they hand cleaned them with a special chemical sponge, cleaned every surface, put everything back in place and then they wrapped everything in plastic,” said Siga.

She said everything was wrapped in plastic because crews also had to replace about 80,000 square feet of ceiling tile.

“So they brought all the ceiling tiles down, cleaned in the space above cleaned the track system and then put in new ceiling tiles.”

The carpet was also replaced and Siga said there was one book collection they decided to replace.

“Not because it couldn’t be cleaned, but that was our board books for toddlers. They’re perfectly clean but they’re cardboard and that particular audience explores their world by putting things into their mouths,” she said.

Carlene MacDougall, a youth services specialist at the library, is one of several staff helping prepare for the opening.

“This is the second library I’ve worked at and just the support of the community, everybody’s really excited for us to come back. You know, we get that question every day, ‘When are you moving back?’” she said.

“It’s too quiet,” she added.

The temporary location is slated to close on April 30 and the library to reopen on May 8 but library officials said a celebration is not planned.

“The reason we were closed is a tragic incident, we’ve all had time to move beyond that but a big celebration didn’t seem to be the right tone,” said Siga.