CARLISLE, Mass. — A Massachusetts librarian on her first day on the job has come across live military shells from the Civil War inside a closet in her new office.

Gleason Public Library director Abby Noland tells The Boston Globe she found the shells Thursday morning inside a box with a label explaining they had been examined by a munitions expert and could be live. She called police, who evacuated the library in Carlisle.

The state bomb squad later arrived and determined the shells were live. It took the shells to the town transfer station to safely detonate them.

The shells turned out to be part of a Gettysburg collection that was donated to the town years ago.

The library reopened after about three hours.