It reopened yesterday after damage caused by a storm forced it to close for just over a week.

Wodonga Council community and development director Debra Mudra said as a result of last Tuesday’s storm they had to replace carpet, four computers, a Playstation, switches and IT connections, and fix damaged plaster.

They also had an additional drainage system added.

Ms Mudra said they would not have a final cost for a couple of weeks but the repairs had cost $50,000 and were covered by insurance.

She said 1000 books were destroyed by the storm that would still have to be replaced.

Since construction in the 1970s, the only maintenance to the library roof has been various leakage fixes and the cleaning of gutters.

Ms Mudra said the damage was caused due to the building’s box gutter.

“They run right through the middle of the building and during the severe storm event it filled up with a lot of water and hail,” she said.

“We had a lot in a short amount of time and the gutters couldn’t cope.

“We would say that this is a unique event and in the whole period of time we’ve been in this building, we’ve only had small leaks.”

An additional drainage system has been added to take high volumes of water out of the box gutter.

Toilets also remained closed for the majority of yesterday as they had to be repainted.

They opened in the afternoon and will be operational as a new exhibition opens at Arts Space Wodonga today.

“It took a massive effort of council and library staff pulling together to make sure all the work was done and the computer systems were back up to speed,” Ms Mudra said.

“Contractors were very responsive and understood the important role libraries play in our community.

“We are happy the library is open again and certainly that’s what our patrons are indicating.”