Supervisors agreed Monday to investigate possible solutions to aleaking roof at the Lincoln County Public Library, whileconsidering the facility’s other requests for aid.

Library director Henry Ledet said the leaks are located in theold part of the structure – not in the recent addition – and covera wide area. Each leak has been patched after being found, he said,but a new leak develops the next time it rains.

“We either need a roof or a whole lot more pails,” said RussellBurns, a member of the library’s board of trustees.

District Two Supervisor Bobby J. Watts expressed his concernabout the situation.

“I don’t like the idea of buckets sitting there catching waterfor Brookhaven and Lincoln County. I’m certainly for floating abond to get a new roof and computers,” said Watts, citing anotherissue brought forth by library board members.

District One Supervisor the Rev. Jerry Wilson agreed and saidthe county needed to investigate what could be done to fix theroof.

The roof on the old building is flat, said Chancery ClerkTillmon Bishop. As supervisors learned with the roof of the LincolnCounty Government Complex, there are only a few options topermanently fix problems associated with flat roofs, he said.

County Attorney Bob Allen said a majority of architects havegone away from flat roofs and have turned again to pitched roofs,but he admitted it was expensive to make the adjustment on existingstructures.

However, Allen said, the installation of a pitched roof may bethe best option available for supervisors.

“That building is like this building or a school – it will bethere forever. It will only get bigger,” Allen said.

Library trustees also requested that if the county were considera bond issue, that they also consider the possibility of adding newcomputers and the cost of paving the rear parking lot to thebond.

The library received 20 new computers in 2005 to help HurricaneKatrina evacuees contact relatives and receive financialassistance. However, many of those computers are no longerserviceable, Ledet said.

“A lot of those Katrina computers have been broken or just don’twork anymore,” he said. “People are hard on those computers.”

Ledet estimated 20 percent of the patron traffic was forcomputer use only.

The parking lot is probably the least of officials’ concerns, hesaid, but it is a project the library has been trying to completesince the opening of the Mississippi School of the Arts, locatedbehind the public facility.

Library board member Emily Henderson also asked supervisors notto reduce the one mill property tax levy allocated to the libraryeach year when they begin to discuss the county budget this month.Increases in the minimum wage and rising costs, such as utilities,have made it difficult to find funding should the library be cut,she said.