The Yorkton Public Library is open in temporary facilities at the Parkland Mall with a small portion of its collection available to browse.
Melody Wood, Manager of Public Services with the YPL said the temporary location is likely to be home well into 2011.
"The City is saying six months, but they said three-to-six months originally," said Wood. "But, I'm thinking it'll probably be longer."
The collection at the Mall location is limited. Wood said it was a case of bringing over books that were not damaged in the July 1 flood which has forced the YPL out of its West Broadway Street location.
"We brought in all the paperbacks that weren't damaged," she said, adding staff "pre-selected both adult fiction and adult non-fiction," for the move as well.
However, some areas of the collection were pretty well decimated by the flood, said Wood, noting the juvenile fiction and non-fiction areas, and children's picture books were all hit very hard in terms of book losses.
"We're just starting to find out if we can rescue any of them," she said.
Wood said the YPL collection included some 58,000 items, including books, CDs and videos. A huge chunk of those were lost.
"I'm looking at at least a third, especially anything on the west side," she said.
Wood said the YPL recognizes other books may have been lost in people's homes because of the flood in the city. In such cases people are 小蓝视频 asked to simply phone in and advise the library of the losses.
"We're not going to charge them, but please don't bring them (damaged books) back," she said.
While the collection at the Mall location is limited, Wood said "people can request books from all over the province. It's not like we don't have access to books."
Access to public computers will be available at the location as soon as SaskTel gets the system hooked-up and operational, said Wood.
Beyond books, Wood said the storage area of YPL was also flooded, and that took out the periodical collections of magazines and newspapers dating back to 2004."
As for the damage to the YPL building, loss of carpets, drywall and other features, as well as losses to the collection, Wood said where the money comes from to the costs is still 小蓝视频 determined,
"I'm waiting for the City," she said, "They're covering certain costs."
The library system will also be involved in covering replacement costs.
"The library covers for the books," said Wood.
"Other stuff, we're not to sure," continued Wood, adding "I'm making application to the provincial disaster program."
The Mall location is open Monday, Tuesday and Friday from 9:30 a.m, to 6 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Saturday 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
