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This is a stone masonry building, Mr. LeClerc said. Its marble and brick all the way through.
The diagnostic work is largely done. Over the last several months, the engineers scaled the building from scaffolding or cherry pickers or rappelled down on ropes to examine every one of the 20,000 blocks of stone.
With hand-held devices, they mapped the building, numbering every piece of marble. They tapped the building with mallets, allowing loose pieces to fall (hence the netting that now wraps part of the exterior), and drilled core samples to study the material.
They took off about 1,000 pounds of stone that was ready to come off, Mr. LeClerc said.
Now, the library has to determine the best cleaning method: whether to use a laser method that zaps off the black sooty pieces or to apply poultices and then peel off the pollutants.
The main library also known as the Humanities and Social Sciences Library has been gradually renovating its interior over the last 30 years, most recently restoring the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division space, with its richly carved wood, marble and metalwork, completed in December 2005.