Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Technology, Muscle Help Stricken Library : Recovery: Thousands of water-damaged books at Valencia outlet will be salvaged through vacuum freeze drying. Branch will be closed 90 days.

SANTA CLARITA —  A mix of high-tech repairs and low-tech muscle is rescuing books and periodicals from the Valencia Library, which was hit harder by the Jan. 17 earthquake than any of Los Angeles County’s 87 library outlets.

The branch will be closed 90 days. While there was no structural damage, one-fourth of the library’s 155,000 books, periodicals and other publications sustained water damage after the 6.6-magnitude earthquake ruptured pipes on the building’s east side.

“I was shocked when I got to Valencia,” said Robert Seal, library area manager for the north county region. “Think of the worst earthquake movie you’ve ever seen--it was that bad. Books were four feet deep off the shelves.”

Initial estimates are that $500,000 in materials were lost. Reference books, government publications and magazines bore the brunt of the water damage because of their proximity to broken pipes. Virtually untouched were books in the children’s section on the library’s west side.

About 7,500 to 8,000 books will be salvaged through vacuum freeze drying, Seal said.

“The stronger the vacuum, the lower temperature it takes to boil water,” Seal said. “They freeze-dry the books, put heat into the vacuum and the frozen water in the book is converted directly to steam.”

Freeze-drying is expected to save the library thousands of dollars in replacement expenses--it costs $1.25 to $1.50 to freeze-dry a book--but it was the low-tech muscle power of volunteers that saved most of the collection.

About 40 volunteers and library staffers worked three 14-hour days to retrieve, catalogue and box materials. The long hours saved 80% of the books and periodicals from additional damage by removing them from the wet, quake-rattled structure.

Water had already flooded much of the library by the time Bobbie Norwood, circulation assistant for the library who lives in Saugus, entered the structure three hours after the earthquake.

“I was horrified,” said Norwood, the first person to enter the building. “I couldn’t believe it, because there hadn’t been that much damage to my home.”

With the help of a sheriff’s deputy, Norwood turned off water to the building and prevented more flooding.

The 24,000-square-foot library was built during 1971 and opened in May, 1972. This is the first time such a large-scale re-shelving of materials has been required. The entire library was re-shelved by sections in the late 1980s when the building was re-carpeted.

Officials are unsure what long-term impact the earthquake will have upon library services. Hours of operation for the Newhall and Canyon Country branches, slashed to two days a week during county budget cutting, have been boosted to three days a week for as long as the Valencia branch remains closed.

Canyon Country Library will be open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays; 1 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays; and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays. Newhall Library is scheduled to reopen Wednesday, and will be open 1 to 8 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fridays.