The uproar of the butterflies

Policy Team are having a bit of a wobble. They've suddenly noticed that this year's figures for reservations performance are awful. I've been telling them this since August. We're barely able to meet the standard proportion of reservations satisfied within a week and are nowhere near the targets set by the corporate Performance Review Team. So this will be added to the collection of worsening trends that will be reported on this summer.

"What can we do about it?" I'm asked.

"You could get 5,000 items off the shelf; place reservations on them; fill the reservations; put the items back on the shelf; and then try and dream up a convincing story to tell to the auditors to explain the 50% jump in March," I reply.

The major problem, of course, is that people are reserving books in good faith and then we're finding that they're not where they should be. Most of the time it turns out, eventually, that they've been stuck in boxes in a back room or else they've been put into the book sale without being taken off our catalogue. Not for the tenth time this year I strongly suggest we do a stock check.