Flooring facelift for Ōtaki and Paraparaumu libraries

Two of Kāpiti’s main libraries will be getting a flooring facelift this year. From mid-May to the end of June this year all of the worn out carpet in the Paraparaumu and Ōtaki libraries will be replaced with a hard-wearing, cost effective carpet tile product.

A large part of the work will be done after hours but some work will need to be carried out during opening hours over a period of about three weeks at each library.

Libraries Manager Kat Cuttriss assures library customers that health and safety measures will be in place throughout the work, including managing any noise, dust and odour issues.

“It won’t be a normal library environment, but these issues will be fairly low level to most people and shouldn’t prevent people from using the library as they normally would,” she says.

Shelves will be cordoned off and jacked up as the carpet layers move through the collections, so there will temporarily be no access to items in certain sections of the collection from time to time.

Customers can ask library staff to retrieve and request such items on their behalf, so they are available for pick-up once that section of the collection is accessible again.

“While this is all part of required regular maintenance it’s exciting that we’ll be able to brighten up the libraries spaces with a fresh design,” Ms Cuttriss says.

“We’ve taken advantage of the opportunity to introduce the same dark blue and green ‘mountains to sea’ theme that was used in the original flooring in the Ōtaki Library.”

The work will start on 14 May at Paraparaumu and 28 May at Ōtaki. Signage in the libraries will advise when work will be happening in each area of the library collections.