The library was initially closed in 2020 as a result of Covid-19 restrictions but stayed shut after these were lifted because of structural damages.
The doors of the Johannesburg City Library were this week momentarily opened for an oversight visit by the media, councillors and civil society organisations who want to know why the facility is still not open, four years after its closure.
The library was initially closed in 2020 as a result of Covid-19 restrictions but stayed shut after these were lifted because of structural damages. The city’s Emergency Management Services (EMS) also said the building was also not fire compliant
This week, Stanley Mlambo, the director of projects in the Johannesburg community development department, told a meeting convened on the ground floor of the library that the plan is to partially open the library within six months once a contractor is appointed, and open it fully in 10 months.
“There has been quite a lot of roof leaks in the building, a lot of water damage, and because of the EMS issue that we could not operate given the concern of the possibility of fire and damage to contain should it take place,” Mlambo said.
The overall cost to repair the building is R54 million, but there is a shortfall of about R30 million based on the approved budget from the city.
Siyabonga Gemu, the head of projects at the Johannesburg Development Agency, said the city would need to attend to the leaks in the roof and internal gutter defects.
One escalator that still works leads to the first floor of the library, which used to be filled with the soft chatter of students studying at the desks. The escalators to the second floor were not working this week, so the tour group climbed up to the performing arts room where Mlambo and Gemu pointed out the water leaks. Paint was peeling off parts of the ceiling and there were water stains on the walls.
A bewildered Flo Bird, founder of the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation that has been lobbying for the reopening of the library, asked the city officials: “You had to close the building to repair that?”
“I’m saying to you, you didn’t realise that the library was so important to people who live in town.”
The escalators to the third and last floor were blocked and the group had to use a side stairway with a marble finish and curved steel rails to get closer to the damage.
All the wooden framed doors of the smaller libraries, including the children’s library, were shut, but a peak through the glass showed a big, dusty room with shelves half-filled with books. There were more water stains and fine cracks on the ceiling, while wooden blocks on the floor were loose. Book cases were covered in dust.
“The facility is old so all this is falling apart because of the age of the structure itself,” Gemu said.
He said the work done to date is repairs to the roof and gutters only with one line of internal gutter that needs to be fixed. The cost to repair these damages was R21 million.
Across the corridor on the third floor is the Harold Strange Library of African Studies, which houses thousands of books on Africa’s history, people, places and heritage.
Wynaard Dreyer, a civil engineer who joined the tour, told the Mail & Guardian that the building used to be fire compliant but now a “fire curtain” was needed in front of the glass door to isolate it from the rest of the building in the event of a fire.
A frustrated Bird said the entire building didn’t need to be closed for the fixes. “They could have done this work. All you had to do was to close Harold Strange, for what, two days? How much longer? You [should] close section by section as you’re working.
“The people who come here are regulars, so the librarians can say, ‘sorry, next two days we’ve got workers coming in to fix that, and then you can come back and work here again’. You just let people know. The point is you can keep using this library.”
The group then headed down four flights of stairs and through narrow corridors into the basement.
Dreyer told the M&G that the fire suppression system — four large, red cylinders — contains halon gas that would spread through the pipes on the low ceilings and be sprayed through the nozzles that exclude oxygen so fire can be contained.
He said the door to the basement was a wooden one, which would allow oxygen to enter the room, and needed to be replaced with a specialised fire door.
The steel shelves in the basement, which lined up behind each other for about half a kilometre, were packed with books.
Wynaard said the books were the archive of the city and many of them dated back to the 1800s. The covers were embellished with gold print and delicate patterns. Too precious to touch.
“From a compliance point of view, currently the entire structure from the basement to the top floor is connected to one system for fire regulation, which is not correct,” Gemu said.
“So, we managed to separate the basement from the top floor, but what the EMS colleagues have advised us is that we must have one independent system that monitors the top floor and a separate system that monitors the basement.”
The City of Johannesburg officials said they would try to “squeeze the programme” and try to open the library sooner.
Bird said she was looking forward to a Christmas opening.