Historic archives of Cerritos College were damaged on Saturday when several roof tiles of the right side of the library caved in and leaked water into the building.

Newspapers, certificates, slides, books, pictures, and negatives were some of the many things that were found soaking wet Monday morning by library tech clerk Robin Brugger.

“Archives of Talon Marks were just soaking wet. The pages of the newspapers and some of the books were stuck together and ink was smearing over them .The box of slides actually had water in it. Water even got inside certificates that were coved in plastic,” she said.

What she finds most shocking is the fact that the roof tiles completely gave in. Last week when the storms hit Cerritos really bad, she said, the tiles just formed this bubble-like shape, but Saturday that it didn’t even rain that hard, made the tiles come off the roof,

She said, “I guess all of last week’s rain had accumulated above the tiles and all it took was a little bit more rain for the damage to occur.”

Laura Smuts, library tech, said she finds it saddening that this happened. It wasn’t just a bunch of books and newspapers, she said, it was the history of the school.

Nursing major Angela Barker was in the library studying at the time that the library clerks were trying to get things sorted and dried.

She thought somebody had gotten laid off and was packing up their stuff.

“I thought one of the library clerks had gotten laid off. Most of them look discontent or overwhelmed. One of them even looks pissed off. I saw people going back and forth with papers and stuff so I figured all of that could only be because someone was leaving. Now that I know what happened I kind of wished someone had gotten laid off,” she joked.

Though she found it funny, her sister, nursing major Amanda Barker, thought it was insulting and definitely no laughing matter.

She said, “I know the library has been getting a lot of cuts because of the state our budget is in right now but if there had been more library clerks working or librarians, I’m sure someone would have come up with someway to cover the archives and protect them. Not only that but why are (the archives) even in the library and not have a room of their own? The history of the school is obviously not that important if the school can’t even find a safe place to keep it.”

Brugger explained that when it rains, the library clerks take the responsibility of placing a plastic cover over the bookshelves.

However, because they had not anticipated rain over the weekend, especially not rain that would make the tiles come crashing down, the library clerks forgot to place the plastic covers over the bookshelves.

“That’s what we have always done. If we know it’s going to rain we place the covers and hope that nothing gets ruined. It upsetting that the one time we forgot to put the covers was the one time that the roof tile got damaged and caused all this damage,” she said.

Not only did the archives get damaged but so did three racks of newly ordered books.

Just last week, a new set of books for nursing, art, photography, reading, and woodworking arrived.

The books were suppose to be processed Monday, but to Linda Tan’s surprise, the books were also victims to the roof leakage over the weekend.

The library assistant buyer said, “It is literally thousands of dollars gone down the drain. The pages of the books are either stuck together or the ink is smeared. This is ridiculous. I don’t know if the school will be able to place another order of books and if it can’t then that money was just wasted.”

Both Brugger and Tan were upset that the order for the replacement tiles had been placed over 10 years ago and yet nothing has been done to fix them because maintenance “didn’t have enough tiles to replace them.”

The library technical clerks do not know exactly what is going to happen with the new books or the historic archives, but they hope for the best.

“Some of the things date back to when the college was first instituted. It’s sad that all most of these archives are damaged and some may even be lost, depending on how wet they are and how much (the library techs) can do to try to save them,” said Brugger.