Renew for One Day
Luwan District Public Library · closed 30 June 2026
Your name is Xu Zhou, and you are twenty-three. On a summer night when you were ten, someone pushed you out through a ventilation hatch. You kept the picture book she put in your arms. You never returned it.
The building is being demolished today. You came to return the book.
Content note: flooding, confined spaces, power cuts, loss and death. No gore, no jump scares; audio can be muted throughout.
Records now in the catalogue
Notice of Closure
Administration · 01 Jun 2026 · Public
As part of the district cultural-facilities programme, this library closes at 17:00 on 30 June 2026 and is fenced off for works from 1 July. Reader cards, loan records and unreturned items transfer to the district central library under the Disposal Rules.
During the closing period nothing may be borrowed from the open stacks — returns only. The book drop stands at the side door (217 Luwan Road) and is emptied at 09:00 and 15:00 daily; from 1 July 2026 it stops accepting anything.
Overdue items are exempt from fines before closing. After closing the system stops charging, but unreturned records transfer with the archive and keep their existing status — nothing is written off.
The transfer happens in three streams: open-shelf volumes are inventoried and loaded; local studies material goes into moisture-proof crates under escort; the Children’s Room picture-book shelf waits, because water-stuck volumes must be opened page by page and each tear recorded before anyone can count them. That count has been reopened every year since 2013 and has never closed.
Item | When | Where Closing | 30 Jun 2026, 17:00 | Whole building Final emptying | 30 Jun 2026, 15:00 | Side-door book drop Closed-stacks cut-off | 15 Jun 2026 | Basement 2 Picture-book count | unfinished | Basement 2, Bay B
The closed stacks on Basement 2 accept no requests after 15 June 2026; exceptions need a request slip. Attachment: DB-2026-0630.pdf
This notice is re-sent by the system at 07:00 daily from a template. So is the events column, which still pushes “Summer Night Reading” on its 2013 schedule, thirteen years running. To unsubscribe, register your name and card number at the second-floor desk.
Online Catalogue · Front Page
Systems team · live page
Luwan District Public Library opened in 1998 and holds 127,000 volumes across the Children’s Room, the General Reading Room, the Local Studies Room and the closed stacks (Basement 2, by request slip).
The online catalogue runs 24/7. To request anything in person bring your card; children’s cards are for under-16s and renewals must be handled by a parent or guardian.
You can search by title, author, call number, the last four digits of a card, or full-text tags. The children’s collection and the closed stacks share one index, but the stacks’ full-text tags only open after a request. In the system they have always been there; you simply are not shown them.
Results sort by accession year, newest first. One exception sits in the systems manual: anything tagged damaged or awaiting count is pushed to the end, with the comment “so that readers do not assume the shelf still holds it”. No record in this catalogue carries any other tag.
Most searched this month Picture books | Local chronicles | Summer night readings | Rota | An Umbrella for the Rain
Notice: your card has an overdue item; please return it soon. Last sign-in: 2 July 2013, 19:44.
Opening Hours and Areas
Administration · 2026 edition
Tue–Sun | 09:00–21:00 | Mondays: maintenance Night sweep-out | 22:00 | Whole building Closed stacks | Weekdays 10:00–16:00 | Basement 2, staff escort required
Basement 2 has no mains lighting. Night corridor lighting is fed from the plant room on the services level; the pumps run on constant power and the emergency lamps stay lit while they run — nobody switches them.
The Children’s Room is on the second floor, with a mat area and a story-telling corner. When the building opened in 1998 the only links between the second floor and Basement 2 were a goods lift and a ventilation hatch. The lift was decommissioned in 2015; the hatch is still on the inspection list, marked “emergency route — must not be blocked”.
The night sweep runs like this: a announcement at 21:30, a duty librarian walks floors one to three at 21:45 and signs the sweep sheet, the roller door comes down at 22:00. Basement 2 is not on the walk, because its access control is separate and owned by the engineering team; their inspection runs by day and does not go inside the stacks.
Access-control export, routine: the most recent entry after hours was at 23:41, with no matching exit. Engineering note: device fault, job raised.
Card LB-K-0771 · Loan History
Children’s Room · 2013–2026 · holder only
Card no. | LB-K-0771 Holder | Xu Xiaozhou (aged 10 in 2013) Type | Children’s card Issued | 5 Mar 2011 Guarantor | Mother (same address) Status | Overdue
Loan history 2 Apr 2011 | Sailor Boots | out 2 Apr 2011 | returned 26 Apr 2011 18 Jun 2012 | The Waterways of Luwan, for Children | out 18 Jun 2012 | returned 11 Jul 2012 14 Jun 2013 | An Umbrella for the Rain | out 14 Jun 2013 | due 14 Jul 2013 | not returned
One item outstanding: An Umbrella for the Rain, issued 14 June 2013, due 14 July 2013. The issuing-staff field is blank. The system only checks that a staff number exists when someone else types one; a blank field raises no error and enters no report.
Thirteen overdue notices were posted, all to Flat 2, Unit 3, No. 9 Huai’an Road, Luwan, each signed for by “Mother”. The first is dated 15 July 2013; the last, 15 July 2025. The 2026 letter was never sent, because the library stopped posting on 30 June.
The postal address was amended once, in September 2014, to the same street and the same number — only “Unit 4” became “Unit 3”. Amended by: “guardian, on the child’s behalf”. Handling staff number: LB-0412. No employee record exists under that number, and the address-migration job never ran, so all thirteen letters went to the old address and still reached your family.
System note: this library grants a one-day grace period.
Returns and Renewals
Front desk · 2026 edition · Public
Return items through the side-door book drop or at the desk. Every emptying is logged: time received, volume, original card number, overdue or not.
Fine | ¥0.10 per volume per day Grace period | one day Renewal | once per card per year, extends by one day Staff cards | excluded from this rule
Renewals require the cardholder in person; a guardian signs for children’s cards. The system recognises who borrowed something, never who brought it back.
After emptying, each volume is traced back through its original card number. Anything that resolves is cleared and shelved for collection; anything that does not goes to lost property, recorded with three fields only: date received, volume, condition. In the row for 15 June 2013 the condition column holds a single word: wet.
Final service window Fines waived | 16–30 Jun 2026 Renewals accepted | 09:00–16:00 only, second-floor desk Book drop emptied | 09:00, 15:00 From 1 Jul | drop closed, desk removed
Renewals recorded against this card after 14 July 2013: none. The system adds: one renewal is still available on this card. Remaining: 1.
The Last Story Time · Poster
Children’s Room · summer 2013 · scan
Summer Night Reading · Final Story Time | When: the second Friday of June, 19:30 | Where: second-floor mat area | Led by: a volunteer | Sign-up: second-floor desk
The poster was printed with a hand-drawn title and a paper folded umbrella taped in the corner. Twelve children signed up; six came. The sign-in sheet is on the third shelf of the cabinet, in the round handwriting of a first-grader.
The bottom-right corner has been soaked. Whatever followed “June” has run into a blur; only the left half of a 1 survives.
On the back, six names in pencil — the children who actually came. The last one has been crossed out and rewritten beside it: “Xu Xiaozhou” struck through, “Zhou-zhou” written next to it. The pencil is light, but the line through the old name has been gone over three times.
12 signed up | 6 came Sign-in sheet (extract) 1 Zhou Xiaoman | 2 Li Rui | 3 Chen Yu | 4 A-Guo | 5 Zheng Jiashu | 6 (blank) Back: Xu Xiaozhou → Zhou-zhou
Call number SE-2013-06. Medium: publicity sheet (paper). Accessioned 15 June 2013. Note: water damage, handling restricted. The form to request handling shares its format with the closed-stacks slip.
Children’s Room Annual Return, 2025
Children’s Room · filed 09 Jan 2026 · circulated
1. Active cards: 3,182, down 214 year on year; the drop follows the closure of three primary schools in the district, whose graduating readers let their cards lapse. 2. Circulation for the year: 41,207 issues, of which 9,860 were picture books, a little over a quarter. 3. Reading events held: 148, attended by 1,096 people in total.
Events by type Weekend story time | 48 sessions | 612 attendances Summer morning reading | 36 | 305 Night story time | 0 | 0 Books to schools | 28 | 141 Craft and rubbing | 36 | 38
The Night story time line has been filled with 0 since 2014, and the remarks column always reads “discontinued for reasons”. This return does not restate them.
4. Outstanding items: eleven things the room is still holding on behalf of readers, the oldest logged in 2013; two copies of the picture book An Umbrella for the Rain, one on the shelf and one still marked as borrowed, its borrower having left post, so no reminder can be sent. 5. This return transfers to the district central library with the rest of the closing work; the paper copy sits in the second shelf of the office cabinet.
Handwritten note at the foot of the return: “All 41,207 came back. Only one did not.”
Story Time Photo Wall, Spring 2013
Children’s Room · taken on the mat · twelve frames
These twelve frames were shot on the Children’s Room mat between April and June 2013, originally as record photographs for that year’s reading season. The boards were taken down and the prints went back to storage; they were re-catalogued during the closing work in 2026 as Q-2013-01 to Q-2013-12.
Q-2013-03 | six children seen from behind, the shortest in a red padded coat Q-2013-05 | hands shot up to answer; six of them Q-2013-07 | a pair of bunny-ear slippers at the edge of the mat, taken off, toes turned in and lined up Q-2013-08 | someone crouching behind the children with a book, only half a sleeve in frame Q-2013-11 | after the room emptied, the mat bare, the slippers still where they were
On the back of that print, in ballpoint: “Bunny-ear slippers. Held for her by Auntie Ye, until their owner comes back for them.” The other eleven backs are blank.
The twelfth frame is the only one with a face: an adult bent over a page, turned toward the camera, but that whole area is fogged with damp. The edge still shows she was smiling. In the remarks the cataloguer wrote “identity to be confirmed”, followed by two question marks.
During cataloguing there was a proposal to send the slippers off with the photographs. Because the lost-property register already carries an entry for them, print and object were logged separately. The photograph is here; the thing itself is somewhere else.
“My Favourite Librarian” Ballot: Opening Record
Children’s Room · box opened 30 Jun 2013 · two scrutineers
The vote ran alongside the reading season. Ballots were printed by the room itself, collected at any service desk, and dropped into a cardboard box mounted on the mat-area wall. The window was 20 April to 28 June 2013; the box was opened on the morning of 30 June, counted aloud, with two volunteers from the room as scrutineers and the tally written up on the spot.
Ballots issued 300 | valid 214 | void 6 First: “Auntie Ye”, Children’s Room, 106 votes Second: Mr Zhou, General Reading Room, 41 Third: Director Shao, Administration, 28 Remaining 39 spread over eleven people
Scrutineers’ note: the first line records what the children call her, not a name as written on the staff list. A small line was added underneath: “Match her against the rota.”
One original ballot is kept with the record, written small at the edge of the box: “I vote Auntie Ye. She taught me my characters and tied my shoelaces when they came undone.”
The prize was a hardback picture book bought by the library, to be claimed in person. The record ends: “The winner was absent that day; the prize is held in the Children’s Room.” The word for “off duty” has been struck through and replaced, in the same pen, with “on shift”.
Volunteer Rota, Summer 2013
Children’s Room · pencil, scanned from the posted copy
This is a scan of the sheet that hung on the room’s noticeboard: A3 photocopy paper, filled in pencil, wiped and rewritten every Friday. Only the column headings are printed — date, time slot, story-teller, mat and furniture, door register. The printed roster runs to three lines; everything below it is handwriting.
Fri 07 Jun, 19:00 night session | teller: Ye Chunfen | mat: Han Lei | register: printed line 2 Fri 14 Jun, 19:00 night session | teller: Ye Chunfen | mat: Han Lei | register: printed line 3 Fri 21 Jun, 19:00 | teller (blank) | mat (blank) | register (blank) Fri 28 Jun, 19:00 | teller (blank) | mat (blank) | register (blank)
Bottom right of the sheet one pencil entry has been gone over: the teller’s name in the 14 June box is traced twice, heavier than the rest, and the paper is roughed where the lead was pressed. Beneath it, in very small letters: “She does not need a shift. She is here every day.”
Pin holes and a strip of tape are visible at the edge of the scan. The paper original was not found during the 2026 count; this scan is the only surviving form of the sheet.
Holdings Record: An Umbrella for the Rain
Children’s Room | shelfmark P/8I24 | two copies held
An Umbrella for the Rain, words and pictures unattributed, 2009 edition. The library bought two copies in 2011 for the picture-book section of the Children’s Room. Both carry a accession stamp matching the register. It is the story of an umbrella lent to a rain; the rain stops and the umbrella does not come back, and the last page has one line: “That’s all right. I’ll wait a little longer.”
Copy 1 | P/8I24:1 | accessioned 12 Mar 2011 | now: on shelf, good condition Copy 2 | P/8I24:2 | accessioned 12 Mar 2011 | now: on loan, not returned Loan history, copy 2: 14 Jun 2013 issued to card K-0000 | due 14 Jul 2013 | status: not returned From 15 Jul 2013 the system accrues overdue automatically; thirteen notices issued 28 Jun 2026 copy 1 withdrawn from the shelf by the closing team; status unchanged
K-0000 is not a reader’s card. Under the library’s numbering rules the K-0000 block is reserved for staff cards issued to the library’s own employees, and must be looked up separately.
A 2013 staff note sits in the bibliographic record: “This title is the fixed selection for the night story time; read aloud once each session. The other copy circulates.” So the copy that never came back is not the borrowing copy. It is the one that was read out loud.
Lost and Found Register, 2011–2026
Administration · ledger 14 · entries excerpted
This ledger records what the library found and nobody claimed. Each entry gives the date and place found, a description, where it is kept and a deadline; unclaimed items are transferred or destroyed under the Disposal Rules. There are 96 entries between 2011 and 2026; eleven still read “unclaimed”.
S-2013-018 | found 14 Jun 2013 on the Children’s Room mat | one pair of bunny-ear slippers, the character for “boat” written inside the left one | kept in the Children’s Room | unclaimed S-2013-019 | same day, on top of the outside book drop | one folding blue umbrella, one rib broken | unclaimed S-2013-020 | same day, at the mouth of the closed-stacks corridor | one tin pencil case with a name card inside | unclaimed S-2016-004 | 11 May 2016 | one pair of reading glasses | unclaimed S-2022-011 | 02 Sep 2022 | one yellow raincoat, reflective strip worn off the cuff | unclaimed
The three entries dated 14 June 2013 are written by one hand — not the hand of the rota, and not the hand on the back of the photograph. A note at the foot of the ledger reads: “Three things, one place, one night. Return together; do not split.”
At the June 2026 count a sticky note was attached beside the eleventh unclaimed line: “After closing, unclaimed property transfers to the central library’s lost-property window. No further custody.” It is unsigned.
Notice: No Loitering in the Closed Stacks
Engineering · issued 02 Sep 2013 · posted at the basement stair
Readers have been spending long periods in the aisle between the compactors on Basement 2, sitting or lying there, obstructing the moving ranges and the equipment rounds. From today, anyone entering on a request slip must leave as soon as the item is delivered, and accompanying persons must not remain in the aisle. The ranges crush when they move; children are not to enter.
Annex: Basement 2 plan, key points 1 compactor ranges (12 bays) 2 electrical room 3 circulation pump and valve bay 4 flood shutter (lowered by hand from the inside) 5 vent hatch at the end of the service tunnel, 640 × 480 — not an escape route
Extract from a parent’s letter, posted with the notice: “My child says that night they were pushed out through a vent hatch.” The library’s reply: that opening is an equipment access hatch, normally locked, and is not an escape route. Do not imitate it.
Attached to the notice: extract from the engineering inspection sheet (monthly: 154 columns, September 2013 to June 2026) Flood shutter, inner handle | condition normal | no column left blank in 154 Vent-hatch bolts | condition normal | the July 2013 column adds “re-tightened” Emergency lamp battery | condition normal | the June 2026 column is empty
A line at the foot: this notice is posted until 30 June 2026. The original has tape marks at four corners, and someone has scratched a circle around item 5 with a fingernail.
Retirement Address, Abstracted: Director Shao Bingwen (Museum News no. 41)
Administration · 16 Jan 2020 · from the transcript
Thirty-one years in this building: nine of them repairing books, twenty-two managing people. This trade comes down to holding other people’s things for them. The books belong to others, the shelves to us; the time belongs to others, the rules to us. Readers do not remember our surnames. They remember whether their book came back.
Key points 1. Night events in the Children’s Room were not resumed after 2013; the reasons are stated in that year’s report and will not be repeated. 2. Assessment of agency-supplied staff is the responsibility of the department that uses them; no copy is kept at library level. 3. A proposal to modify the shutter in the closed stacks has been submitted and awaits funding; until then the operating method must not be altered.
In June 2026, with the library closing, Shao Bingwen returned under a rehired contract to carry out the final inventory. The closure notice, the annual return and the stock-count variance sheet all end with his name. The notice also bears his personal seal, a chip missing from its edge.
An editor’s line on the last page of issue 41: “The title is ours; the speaker did not use a script.”
A Parent’s Complaint and the Library’s Reply, June 2013
Administration · petition file 7 · scan attached
The letter (20 June 2013): My child is ten. On the evening of 14 June he was at your night story time. He came home soaked, with a fever, saying nothing. He woke in the middle of the night and said they got out “by climbing through the door”. I want to know what happened that evening, why a ten-year-old had to climb through a door, and who decided it. Please reply in writing, not by phone.
The reply (27 June 2013) 1. Water entered the site at about 23:00; the Basement 2 electrical room tripped and the building lost power for roughly ninety minutes. 2. Six children were taking part. All left by the service tunnel with the assistance of staff and volunteers. No injuries. 3. After the water went down the building was cleaned and the equipment checked; we reopened on 17 June. 4. Night sessions are suspended until further notice. Signed: Administration, Shao Bingwen
Ledger note: the correspondent asked that her name not be published, so the reply does not name her son. The attachments line originally read “two photographs from the scene”; one remains, and the paste spot of the other still shows the tear.
Above the word for “assistance” in the reply there is a pencil smudge, as though another word were erased and written over. It is too faint to read. Beside the file number, in ballpoint, someone has added: “Six children, one adult.”
Reader Suggestions Board, excerpts 2016–2022
Administration · export of public postings
The suggestion board opened in 2011. Readers post by name or anonymously, staff reply within seven working days, and both sides of the exchange are published. These three concern the Children’s Room and its night sessions; the other 1,204 postings are unrelated and are not listed.
2016-09-03 anonymous: Is Auntie Ye still here? My son says his bunny-ear slippers are still in the library and he would like them back. 2016-09-08 library: No one of that name appears on our staff list. Lost property enquiries go to the service desk; a register number is required. 2019-04-17 anonymous: I pass your door every June and wanted to ask whether the children from those night readings are well. 2019-04-22 library: Night sessions ceased in 2013. Records are in the annual reports. 2022-11-05 anonymous: The light in your Basement 2 stays on all night; I can see it from upstairs. Has nobody taken charge of it? 2022-11-11 library: Stacks lighting is interlocked with the circulation pump and is normal operating condition. No action required.
The reply to the first posting was drafted twice. The first version said “she has left her post”; it is struck through. The published text is the second version. The system kept the draft rather than deleting it.
The 2022 reply about the light is signed with a staff number instead of a name. This library has always signed public replies by department; this is the only one signed by number.
Call for Old Photographs, for the Last Section of the History Corner
Administration · posted 11 Mar 2026 · closes 20 Jun 2026
The library is about to close. The History Corner in the stairwell on the third floor has been arranged jointly by readers and staff since the building opened, and holds 214 photographs, the earliest being the group picture of opening day in April 1998. To make that record complete, we now ask the public for photographs, tickets and handwritten papers connected with this library, with preference for 1998 to 2013.
Categories sought 1 opening and the alterations of 1998, 2004, 2011 2 reading events: story times, morning reading, books to schools 3 group photographs of staff and volunteers 4 things the library made itself: rotas, the ballot box, ledgers, seals 5 anything else that shows how this library ran
To submit: give the year and the place; name the people if you can, and where you cannot, write “unknown” rather than guessing. Any photograph taken in the closed stacks must first be cleared with the engineering team.
One more line is appended at the foot: “Two prints of the opening-day group photograph have been received; in both, the person at the far right of the third row is missing. If you have the same scene from another angle, send that too.” The line is set in a different typeface from the notice: it was added later.
Press Clipping: Luwan Daily, 15 June 2013, page 2
Local Studies · one physical item · pressed into page 3 of the inventory
The article: heavy rain fell across the city overnight, with seventeen low-lying flood points in the district, the deepest water at the side entrance of the Luwan District Library. The district flood command reported that at 22:40 on the 14th groundwater in that stretch rose rapidly; at about 23:00 water entered Basement 2, the electrical room tripped, and the library halted its night programme and evacuated those inside. The water had gone by 03:00 on the 15th. No casualties.
Captions. Fig. 1: the outside book drop half submerged, a folded umbrella on its lid. Fig. 2: a water gauge inside the building, photographed by flood-control staff, reading 1.42 metres. Fig. 3: the open stacks being cleaned on the morning of the 15th. Bylined: reporter Zhou Cheng; photographs, district flood-control publicity team.
At the bottom right of the clipping, “1.42” is written in fountain pen, matching the caption to figure 2, with a small line beside it: “The gauge stands in the doorway of the pump room; the reading is the highest water level.”
Local Studies lifted this clipping out of the bound inventory and gave it its own number; rust from a paper clip still marks the page edge where it sat. The register line reads: “The flooding of 2013 — the library’s own account is in the annual return; this is the only outside account there is.”
Staff Register (inventory annex, verified June 2026)
Administration · ledger 2 · print
This register forms part of the closing inventory and lists the fifteen established staff by department, one of them rehired after retirement. Each entry gives name, department, year of entry and staff-number block. It does not include volunteers, student interns or agency-supplied workers — the last group sits in a separate ledger kept centrally by the district cultural system, and this library holds no copy.
Children’s Room (2 established) Han Lei | Children’s Room | since 2009 | number LB-01xx Zhou Min | Children’s Room | since 2018 | number LB-02xx Administration 4 | Engineering 5 | Local Studies 2 | General Reading 2 Total 15, no blank lines
On the last page, a handwritten checking note: “The Children’s Room night-session records name one further person. Not in this register. Please cross-check the agency-supplied ledger.” Dated 18 June 2026, signed Shao Bingwen.
In the same footer, in a different hand and in pencil: “She trained me for three years.” No name, no date, and nothing struck out. Pressed in the binding is also a 2011 staffing plan, whose Children’s Room line is typed “two agency-supplied workers (needed for night sessions)”. Of the two, only one name was ever filled in.
District Cultural System Agency-Worker Ledger (copy sent to the library)
Administration · copy circulated 01 Mar 2013 · photocopy
This photocopy is the copy sent to the library from the district-wide ledger of agency-supplied personnel. The printed headings carry four columns: name, employing unit, post, staff number. Numbers are formed LB-0xxx, a different block from the established staff’s LB-01xx to LB-02xx. The sheet has a crease, and part of the third column is smeared by the copier.
LB-0411 | Luwan District Library, Children’s Room | picture-book shelves | Han Lei (dual appointment) LB-0412 | Luwan District Library, Children’s Room | story time and mat duties | Ye Chunfen Engaged 01 Mar 2011 to 14 Jun 2013 | remarks column: (blank) LB-0413 | District Cultural Hall, gallery | tours | (next page)
The end-date 14 June 2013 is typed, not written, and matches the typeface of the rest of the line — it went in with the batch. The remarks column is blank for all twenty-seven rows without exception.
The standing note on the last page: engagement, attendance and assessment of agency workers are the employing unit’s business; this ledger exists only as a record of engagement, and a record is not cancelled when the engagement ends — corrections must be applied for in writing. Which is to say that this line is still in the ledger.
Agency Wage Receipt Sheet, June to August 2013
Staff Union · finance attachments 2013-06/07/08 · original
Three monthly sheets are bound together, each landscape A4. The headings are name, number, month, due, paid, received. The received column requires the person’s own signature and fingerprint; signature by proxy must note the relationship and be countersigned afterwards.
2013-06 | LB-0412 Ye Chunfen | due 1,860 | paid 1,860 | received: blank 2013-07 | LB-0412 Ye Chunfen | due 0 | paid 0 | received: no line at all; finance has ruled the row out 2013-08 | LB-0412 Ye Chunfen | (no line) 2013-06 | LB-0411 Han Lei | due 1,860 | paid 1,860 | received: Han Lei, fingerprint clear
In the received box for June there is a pencil mark — one character apparently written and erased, the paper roughed, unreadable. Beside it, in fountain pen and very small, a question mark followed by two words: “Signed for her?” That line does not state a relationship as the rules require, and no countersignature was ever added.
The finance note at the foot: “June wages paid in full on attendance; payment stopped from July. The stop follows the change of names sent by the employing unit on 14 June 2013. No explanation of the change was attached.” Added at the 2026 count: “This sheet transfers with the closing. The one blank received box transfers with it. Do not write in it.”
2013 Safe Unit Commendation Paper, library section
Administration · incoming file 214 · with the individual list
The text: in the 2013 safety assessment the Luwan District Library had sound procedures, drills actually carried out, and rapid handling of sudden water, and is awarded the title Safe Unit. A second paragraph takes up the flooding of the night of 14 June: “Water entered the basement spaces at about 23:00; the library put its contingency plan into immediate effect; all six children present were brought out safely; no injuries; no loss of property.”
Individuals commended in the same batch (three from this library) Shao Bingwen | Director | effective organisation Han Lei | Children’s Room | proficient in post Zhou Min (added 2018, not this batch) | General Reading Room Filed 09 Dec 2013 | filed by: Administration
Below the list, in pencil and the same hand as “She trained me for three years”: “Mat and floor duties that night were LB-0412’s. Recommend adding her.” Beneath it, in fountain pen and in the office’s voice: “Non-established personnel are not listed in this table.”
Above the phrase “no injuries” there is an edit: the original appears to have read “no casualties”, with the last character struck out. The change carries no name and no date, and who made it cannot be established.
Staff Union Hardship Grant and Condolence Payment Receipts
Staff Union · year 2013 · ledger 9
This ledger records the union’s two kinds of payment in 2013: hardship grants, quarterly, and condolence grants for marriage, bereavement, illness or injury, one-off. Recipients must be union members and sign against their membership number; non-members fall outside the scheme. Six payments were made across five people.
2013-02 hardship 800 | member 0114 | established | received: Zhou Min 2013-05 hardship 800 | member 0107 | established | received: Han Lei 2013-07 condolence 1,200 | member 0102 | established | received: one, Engineering 2013-09 hardship 800 | member 0114 | received: Zhou Min 2013-11 hardship 800 | member 0119 | received: one, Local Studies (the night flooding of June 2013, persons exposed: no membership number, no record)
The last line was added at the 2026 count, in the counting team’s ballpoint. Under it a union note is stuck on: “Agency-supplied workers are not members of this union. There is no enrolment for that person and no withdrawal either. Hence: no record.”
Pressed in the binding is a 2013 membership application form with the name column empty and a tick in the box for engagement type: agency-supplied. It bears no receipt stamp and no approval, and is dated 13 June 2013. One day before that night.
Annual Fire Inspection Record, April 2013
Engineering · inspection F-2013-071 · print
The inspection covered exit signage, emergency lighting, extinguisher pressure and shutter interlock. The Basement 2 flood shutter was in the test set. Method: cut the mains supply, watch whether the shutter falls on the fire interlock signal; then switch to manual and work the handle from the inside once.
Exit signage | pass Emergency lighting | pass (Basement 2: two batteries to replace) Extinguishers | pass Shutter interlock | automatic drop: did not trigger Shutter, manual from inside | falls into place in six seconds; raising it back requires a person Verdict: pass, with one remedial suggestion
The remedial column reads: “This library’s shutter control has long sat in ‘manual priority (maintenance)’, so the automatic interlock does not act. The recommendation is to leave it as it is until the next major repair; during maintenance the operating method must not be changed. Deadline for correction: none.”
Two engineers’ signatures appear on the last page, on the same sheet as the words “manual priority”. Beside the second, a line: “For flood conditions see the operating rules for the flood shutter.”
Operating Rules for the Flood Shutter, as posted
Engineering · 2011 edition · posted at the stair mouth
1. This shutter is the waterproof seal for Basement 2 and is used only when water on the road outside rises over the top step. 2. It has an electric and a manual position. The electric position draws on the electrical room; if that room loses power, the electric position fails. 3. The manual position works only from the inside of the closed section; the handle stands 1.15 metres up and needs two hands of an adult. 4. There is no operating position on the outside.
5. Once the shutter is down, anyone on the inner side withdraws by the service tunnel, whose vent hatch at the end has a clear height of 64 centimetres. 6. After withdrawal no one re-enters; the shutter is raised only when the water has fallen and an inspection is made. 7. When water reaches the second division of the gauge, drop the shutter at once and do not wait for orders. 8. A drill every six months; the engineering team keeps the record.
In clause 5 of the posted sheet the words “vent hatch” are boxed in red pen, and outside the box a small line reads: “A child can pass. An adult cannot.” The red pen is not the inspector’s hand. By clause 6, “no one re-enters”, a water stain blurs the characters without destroying them.
The drill log at the foot records one in October 2011, one in April 2012, one in October 2012, one in April 2013; every box after that is empty. In the box for October 2013 there are pencil scratches, as though a figure were written and erased. The engineering team’s stamp at the bottom right covers a line of small print: “These rules take effect on issue; the operating method shall not be varied before revision.”
Access Control Screenshot, summarised by staff number, last ten days
Engineering · screen grab 30 Jun 2026 · generated by the system
The grab comes from the summary screen of the access terminal, queried for staff number LB-0412 over 20–30 June 2026. Three columns: time, direction, exit. The direction column holds only “in”, and the exit column is blank in every row.
2026-06-20 | 23:41:07 | in | out: (no record) 2026-06-21 | 23:41:07 | in | out: (no record) 2026-06-22 | 23:41:07 | in | out: (no record) 2026-06-23 | 23:41:07 | in | out: (no record) … (all ten days alike, line by line) 2026-06-30 | 23:41:07 | in | out: (no record)
The system’s own footnote along the bottom edge: “Summarised automatically by staff number. From 14 June 2013: 4,764 entries, 0 exits. The identical time is caused by a scheduled task in the card reader and is normal operating condition.” A question mark has been added by hand after the last sentence, in a font that is not the system’s.
The engineering team appended a suffix meaning “to be verified”, so the file is named access-summary-LB0412-to-be-verified.png. When the grab was taken the terminal’s own clock read 21:14 on 30 June 2026, four hours after closing: the terminal was still logging after the library shut.
The reader is mounted on the inner wall by the side door, its pad 1.1 metres up, its indicator lit green and steady. In the inspection record this terminal has neither been taken out of service nor repaired since 15 June 2013. A note stuck beside the screenshot reads: “The terminal works normally. There is nothing wrong with this table; what is wrong is outside it.”
Work Order: Basement 2 Electrical Room, 16 June 2013
Engineering · order W-2013-0164 · original
Reported 07:20 on 15 June 2013 by the Administration. Symptoms: water standing in the Basement 2 electrical room, main switch tripped, whole building dead. Arrived 07:35. Findings: about 0.4 metres of water in the cable trench, the lower edge of the switchgear submerged, the earth-leakage protection had operated; the shutter motor was damp and could not be driven electrically.
Action: pumped out, dried, insulation tested, three damp parts replaced Power restored 09:10 on 17 June 2013 Outstanding: the shutter’s electric position awaits major repair; until then it stays in “manual priority (maintenance)” Accepted by: Administration, Shao Bingwen | one, Engineering Next preventive check: circulation-pump control circuit, once a year
Under the Symptoms box one more line is added by hand, in the same hand as the acceptance column: “At the moment the shutter fell there was someone on the inner side. Does this require a separate record? Awaiting instruction.” Below the request there is no decision — only a stamp reading “read”.
On the back, the receipts of the following thirteen years, one per year, all inspecting the circulation-pump control circuit, all concluding “normal”. The last is dated 30 June 2026; the inspector’s box is empty and the conclusion is printed: “normal”.
Work Order: Closed-Stacks Circulation Pump, running notes and inspection summary
Engineering · order W-2011-0088, continuation · print and hand
The circulation pump dehumidifies and moves air in the closed stacks. It was installed with the compactors when the building opened in 1998 and had its control board replaced in 2011. It runs on a timer: it starts itself at 23:07 each night and stops fifteen minutes later. The setting is written on the reverse of the board’s nameplate and may not be altered except on a written request from the engineering team.
Inspection summary, once a year for the last five Start time | measured 23:07:00 | deviation nil Run length | 15 min 02 s | pass Body temperature | normal Noise | slight bearing note | acceptable Attended | no (the stacks are not open at night) Abnormalities | none
In the margin, in an inspector’s pencil: “Pump starts 23:07, stops 23:22. At 23:41 the card reader sounds. Both are in the same room, and there is nobody.” A rule is drawn under the note; below the rule, nothing.
The closing instruction at the foot: the pump and the access terminal both sit on the emergency circuit and will stay live after closing, to be cut off by the contractor when the site is handed over. Beneath it: “To stop them before that, an engineer must do it in person. They cannot be stopped remotely.”
Photograph of the Water Gauge, Pump-Room Doorway, 15 June 2013
Engineering · photograph of an object, P-2013-0615-2
The gauge is painted on the east wall at the pump-room door, graduated in centimetres, with zero at the Basement 2 floor. The photograph was taken on the morning of 15 June 2013 by the district flood-control team and kept by the engineering team; the suffix 2 marks it as the second frame of the scene, the first being figure 2 of the newspaper clipping.
Readings recorded on the back of the photograph Highest water level | 1.42 m | the tide-line on the paint is clean, between the second and third divisions Lower edge of the compactor ranges | 1.28 m | submerged: bottom tier of bays 1 to 6 Sill of the vent hatch | 0.64 m | this is the exit; the sill shows scuff marks On the face of the print, bottom right, “1.42” again in fountain pen, matching the back
Lower on the back, an addition by the engineering team: “Eight centimetres above the tide-line there is a second, fainter line, presumably left by the water as it fell. Not entered as a reading.” Dated 18 June 2013.
The print is water-damaged: about two square centimetres of emulsion has lifted at the bottom right, and it falls exactly over the last two figures of the vent-hatch sill. The figures are covered, but the handwritten record on the back of the same sheet gives them whole.
Rephotograph of a Lost-Property Attachment: a Staff Badge and a Loan Slip
Children’s Room · register entry S-2013-020 · rephotographed
Entry S-2013-020 of the lost-and-found register reads: “one tin pencil case, with a name card inside.” At the 2026 count the case was empty and the object gone; only a rephotograph survives, taken in the library in 2013, one frame of each side.
Face | plastic badge, corners worn white, blue lanyard Name: Ye Chunfen | Number: LB-0412 | Department: Children’s Room Reverse | a folded loan slip pinned on, printed: An Umbrella for the Rain | issued 14 Jun 2013 | due 14 Jul 2013 | card K-0000
Ballpoint marks at the edge of the print: “The badge and the pencil case were found together, at the mouth of the closed-stacks corridor.” And: “The child’s name card is kept separately; see S-2013-018.” The two marks are in different hands. The lanyard had broken once and been glued back with clear tape, now yellowed.
The lower edge of the loan slip is creased shallowly, three times over. The three creases match the way the picture book’s dust wrapper folds — the fold used to keep a slip inside a book. At the bottom right of this rephotograph, the water-gauge print numbered P-2013-0615-2 once lay beside it; their edges still line up.
About this game
Renew for One Day is the 20th original browser puzzle game made by GameStrategists. Story, puzzles, code and pages are all by one person. It is fiction: the library, the staff number, the card and every date and slip are invented, and any resemblance to a real institution or person is coincidence.
Every image in the game is an AI-generated fictional picture. It is not a photograph and does not depict a real event; the generation method is stated in the settings panel.
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This is a free original work. Text, puzzle design and code are copyright alphaBETA DEV / GameStrategists. You may play it, record it, write guides and quote parts of it with attribution; you may not republish it wholesale, resell it for money, or strip the authorship.
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This is an independent, original, fictional puzzle game. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to any real library, institution, company or person. Institution names, staff numbers, card numbers, dates and slips are invented.
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