Who ya gonna call? BOOK DUSTERS!

The problem with children's books, if you're dusting each one, is that so many more of them fit on library shelves than do the tomes big people read. Skinny little spines promising skinny little stories about puppies, daddies, ponies, mean kids, the stars and Curious George, just to name a few subjects, take so much longer to clean off.

But it was onto the ceiling of the children's room that the humongous piece of stone fell from the tower of the Carnegie Library branch in Allegheny Center several years ago after a lightning strike that disabled the building for future library use.

"Thank goodness it was Carnegie steel" above the ceiling, said Mary Monaghan, assistant director for neighborhood branches. Between the steel beams, the plaster the stone hit rained down on the children's collection like fairy dust and fairy pebbles; the stone lodged above.

Walkabout found eight volunteers this morning wiping down books to help the library staff prepare for the big move to the new branch next week. They live all over the North Side's various neighborhoods and should be applauded -- clap-clap-clap -- for doing a tedious job to help a great institution.

Volunteers started trickling in around 10 a.m. and they came and went through the afternoon.

Trish Doyle of Allegheny West and Aime Weis of Observatory Hill worked in a corner together. Trish was Aime's age -- 16 -- when she got her first job at the Carrick library, "shelving books, reshelving books, straightening books, checking books out and helping with the children's program," she said.

Trish  has been taking her children to the Woods Run branch since the old branch was closed. The new branch opens officially Aug. 29 on Federal Street.

As huge as the old building is, the new library will have 3,000 more square feet of public service space, which means that much of the old library was not used. But it will be home to the heritage collection for at least another year while staff culls it to determine how to best present it.