We're taking a bit of a breather while the world rearranges its underpants. Meanwhile, the other blog is here.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

I told them this was an audition

We start the presentation with a winsome cantata by a collection of toothless moppets...

I'm only a reference librarian
Exemplar of all of the breed.
I spend most the day
Quietly hiding away

Anything you could happen to need.
The laws of the Medes and the Persians
Are current in our library.
What may make you wince
We've not weeded since
That flooding in 1903.


As a counterpoint, let us welcome an academic in his new Madison Avenue suit.

Library! Oh library!
We do stuff and it's mostly free.
And I think the best of the lot
Is our ref library.
Don't you? Course you do. You know you do.

And if there's one thing that prompts us to hug ourselves
Is the treasure of knowledge upon our shelves....

Oh, I idle with glee in my ref. library
With my pamphlets on getting flints to spark;
An exam set or two from nineteen eighty-two;
And how to spot Stukas in the dark;
Volunteer work amongst teak trees in Sarawak;
How to pay Window Tax should it ever come back;
Those tunes we may hum
In nineteen thirty-one.
It's all there in my reference library.

Dee dee dee, la de dee dee dee
Dee dee dee, lad de dee....

Sets of Yellow Pages transcending the ages
To which we'll refer all your needs
For a butcher or baker or candlestickmaker
In two thousand and three in a suburb of Leeds.
You'll wonder you'd not asked us sooner
For tide tables for Tristan da Cuhna.

Oh, there's so much to see in our ref. library
And they lay out the stock with such care.
Not Dewey, you'll see, let alone LCC
But the length of the complier's mate's hair.
If you need something current then baby you're out of luck.
It won't be in stock 'cos it isn't a trophy book.
We polish with pride the now-fossilised hide
Of our reference library,

It's oh, so, so merry,
To browse in our reference library.

7 comments:

Madame DeFarge said...

I can see this on Britain's Got Talent. Really, I can. I'm singing along already. Inbetween guffaws and groans of envy at your lyricism.

Kevin Musgrove said...

Thankee kindly lady

Gadjo Dilo said...

Excellent, but I'm groping for the tune here, Kevin. It's Gilbert & Sullivan in feel, and yet the Sex Pistols' Pretty Vacant also fits quite well.

The Topiary Cow said...

Cow once worked in a library where they got rid of all the books in favor of just having stuff available from a library consortium of online cd resources. Still providing, of course, the same 5 computers for visitors.

There is, apparently, no good answer.

Moo!

Lavinia said...

Is this still a blog or has it turned into a meeting of the glee club?

Kevin Musgrove said...

Gadjo: I should have included an apology to Tom Lehrer.

Ms. Cow: Yep, been there. Except that having made me spend three years bidding for the money for the CD network (back in the day...) and having spent months on the installation project, I turned round and said: "where are these CDs then?" And...

Lavinia: cheeky! 21 out of 2,146 posts. I expect I need some more clowns. (-:

Dr Maroon said...

I like Arnie's solution (final that is, well he IS Austrian) burn them all and have online books instead. The man's a genius stroke utter aunt.

wv is pregud; not a hundred miles from Perigord. Chin up my friend.

Every year I get the Orkney tide tables sent to me, I can't remember why. Kirkwall is a good six minutes behind Stromness. (Topography)