The cleanest library in Alaska

Well, if there was a white-glove inspector who made the rounds of libraries, we would receive a 5-star rating this week. We had a little mishap with a fire extinguisher this weekend - the big chemical extinguisher in our book drop closet malfunctioned Sunday night. Think of shooting a 5-gallon bucket of yellow talcum powder out of a cannon, and that would pretty much sum up the effect. There was a layer of yellow monoammonium phosphate on everything, and we needed to clean it up before letting the public back into the building.
So for the last four days we have washed walls, vacuumed books, wiped and re-wiped chairs, tables, shelves, monitors, video cases, magazine racks and desks, washed the drapes and emptied everything out of the staff room (where the book drop closet is located).
We've gotten rid of boxes of date-due cards that are supposed to be stamped by machines that we haven't owned in 17 years. We've gotten rid of backup discs for Windows 98 operating systems. We've vacuumed up dust bunnies from 1983, and the Christmas cacti are a totally different color now that we've hosed off years of accumulated dust.
Unfortunately, I don't think most people will see any difference now that we are re-open. Most of our dust was hidden behind books, under cords and between shelves (which is why it had been left in peace for so many years). But rest assured your library is now way cleaner than your typical library...and you can smell the lemony freshness from all those darn Swifters.