BERNARDSTON — Cushman Library’s board of trustees is working to sanitize and declutter the library so that its doors can be open to the public again.

The library has been closed since Jan. 9 after a building inspection was conducted by Regional Health Inspector Jasmine Ward and Program Manager/Regional Health Agent Randy Crochier, both with the Franklin Regional Council of Governments’ Cooperative Public Health Service.

Upon initial inspection, health officials found Cushman Library had “impeded access, dangerous storage conditions, and clutter that promotes the harborage of rodents and vermin,” according to a letter from FRCOG from the initial Jan. 9 inspection.

“This investigation was in response to a complaint received from a resident of the town,” the letter reads. “Our records indicate that there have been previous, similar complaints that have been filed with the Bernardston Board of Health.”

In a follow-up inspection on Jan. 18, it was noted that effort had been made to remove and reorganize parts of the library, but health officials said in an updated letter that “the facility continues to show a lack of routine maintenance in regards to basic housekeeping.”

Brandon Grover, president of Cushman Library’s board of trustees, said he hopes to have the library reopened to the public after the next inspection on Feb. 15.

“The trustees have put together a cleaning of the library from basically the top floor down through,” Grover explained. “We’ve been systematically going through the books on the upstairs floor in the bookshelves and deep cleaning the library.”

Grover said a lot of these problems were sparked by “egress issues,” specifically with handling book donations.

“We get a lot of books, a lot of donations, and our library is very small,” Grover explained. “We don’t have enough area to hold onto the donations for programs and the past librarian collected a lot of stuff for programs. That was the excessive clutter.”

Grover also mentioned the trustees intended to thoroughly clean the library a while back, but it was put on hold after achieving other projects over the past year, like replacing the knob and tube wiring in the upstairs attic ceiling and adding blown-in insulation.

The trustees also cleaned out the basement area by removing deteriorated fiberglass insulation and using spray foam insulation on the stone basement walls instead. Mini-split heating and cooling systems were also installed.

“We had quite a few items done, so that deep cleaning really kind of got put on hold,” he said. “And unfortunately, it just kind of accumulated.”

So far, cleaning the library has been fully voluntary, and Grover said any future costs would come out of the board of trustees’ budget, if necessary.

Assuming Cushman Library passes its next inspection on Feb. 15, the public can begin checking out books again on Saturday, Feb. 17.

“If [FRCOG] says, ‘Yeah you’re good to go, you can open,’ then we’ll send out a bulletin,” Grover said. “We’re going to try to open up that Saturday.”

Until Cushman Library passes inspection, the building is closed to the public. People can only return books using the outside drop-off bin.