An orang-utan in a top hat is no great bargain

Fred Anonymous writes...

"Hi Kevin,

Our council had one of those equalities events the other week. You know the sort of thing: lots of folk get together in one place to be subjected to workshops and platitudes from the great and good. On balance they're a good thing as it gives some of the people who actually do things the chance to meet other people who actually do things and this network of useful contacts acts as a useful antidote to the Council Way Of Doing Things. If having to spend some time listening to patronising claptrap is the price to pay for such added value so be it.

A few folk from our library service went to it, including one of our senior managers. I found out today that he was doing a workshop on "delivering services electronically to the public." I only found out because he circulated the workshop notes. As I'm the only person in our service who actually is delivering services electronically to the public I was interested to find out what he had to say on the matter. I was a tad disappointed. We already knew that there were steps to the front door to one of our libraries. And that there aren't always enough People's Network PCs when the libraries are busy. And the signage could be better. But it's worth people reminding us, I suppose. What's remarkable about the whole thing is that the workshop doesn't seem to have covered anything about delivering services electronically to the public. At all.

Had I been consulted or involved I would have suggested that even our existing online services mean that customers don't have to be able to physically get to a library building during library opening times to receive library services. Which is a great boon for people who are time-poor due to family or caring commitments. And for housebound people. In fact, we could make a bit of a noise about the fact that some of our housebound customers search the web catalogue, place reservations on the items they want and the items are delivered to them by the housebound library service. We could explain about the ways that people can build their own reading lists, or use the online reading lists I've already created, to help them with their studies or literacy skills. Or reading lists for people working with people with special needs or who need help with their English literacy. And the online e-book resources we've been using to meet the needs of visually-impaired people wanting to study classic texts.

I would have said.

Ah fuck it. Ignore me, I'm forgetting the cardinal rule of the English public librarian: "what's the point of having an opportunity if you can't flush it down the lavatory before someone asks you to do something with it?"

Happy days.

I have no useful response to this, Fred. We both know the score: the real cardinal rule of the English public librarian is: Know Thy Place. Just don't let it get you down.

See me coming down the street with the winning post on my pillion seat

An email from Fred Anonymous, who claims to be snow-blind and suffering from cabin fever:

"I thought this would appeal to your sense of municipal responsibility.

"Like most everywhere, our council's getting a lot of flak about gritting the roads, or lack thereof. Unlike most everywhere, this happens even in the mildest of winters. You can always tell where the council boundaries are: whenever there's even the slightest flurry of snow neighbouring councils have roads in black or grey and we have them in white. And so it is right now, with every road and pavement ungritted.

"Except for one straight line, two feet wide, that starts at the entrance to the council offices where the directors and chief executive work and leads across the road, then across the square and across the road again to the town hall where the councillors do their business."

Remember 'Mind my bike?'

The new health centre and council office just down the road from Tench Lane Library is ready to open to the public. I can't help thinking they'll have a few complaints about the access to the council reception point. There's a ramp up to the door, which is plenty wide enough for a motorbility scooter to scuttle through.

But somebody will need to explain why there's a big sign saying "unsuitable for wheelchairs" at the bottom of the ramp.

If we can bring one smile to one little face someone will have slipped up somewhere

We start 2009 on an uncharacteristically useful note.

Sybil's spent all week trying to get hold of an audio version of Descartes' "Meditations on First Philosophy" for a visually-impaired customer. This isn't the easiest of searches, not made any easier by said customer ringing the library once a day to complain that it's non-arrival is a breach of the Disability Discrimination Act (completely unfounded: we don't discriminate against any self-important tosspot of any kind).

"It'll be just my luck for him to do a WorldCat search or something and find it first time," she says.

"He's online then?"

"I couldn't find it on Project Gutenberg."

"Have you tried LibriVox?"

She did, and lo and behold!

We can jack it in now, we've had the win for the year.

National Sight Day

"I'm just going upstairs to meet the Mayor," Mary tells Noreen.

"Why's he here?" asks Noreen.

"He's here for National Sight Day. He's popping in to have a cup of tea with Nancy."

Is it National Sight Day? Apparently so: Spadespit Bullocks have blindfolded the Mayor and he's gamely spending a couple of hours wandering round the town centre to get an idea of what it's like to be blind. It's become a tradition, and as an earlier Mayor said:

"I was so relieved to take of the blindfold after a couple of hours: I'd found it so difficult. Then I realised that some people can't take it off."

We didn't do anything for Make A Noise With A Library Day because Nancy was off sick. I don't know why we've not done anything for National Sight Day, except giving the Mayor a cup of tea, 'cos she's been pottering about the building for weeks now. I'm annoyed with myself at not spotting this event myself; I shouldn't wait for the information to be communicated by the librarian in charge.

I am further delighted to be dragged away from an urgent piece of work to come up and chat the Bullocks about the talking PCs in Nancy's unit. They'd asked T.Aldous who wasn't sure of the details of the service they provide and Nancy was even less forthcoming. It irritated me no end to see that she was spending all her time serenely drifting about the room nestling her mug on her belly.

There are days when I feel guilty that I'm paid the same as Frog and Bronwyn. I am disgusted and infuriated that we're all paid the same as Nancy.

Filled with anger and self-loathing I escape and get back downstairs to a piece of work that had a lunchtime deadline and find that the corporate network's fallen over again. Luckily, the work's done remotely via the browser so I can get it completed and sent off on one of the public PCs.

Signs of the times

Kitty, one of the Early Years Librarians, has been doing another story-and-song session at Senebene Library today. One of the regular customers has deaf parents and has British Sign Language, so she signs the session to add another dimension to the fun. I'd like to see it, it sounds really interesting.

Today Kitty was doing "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," with the movements, when she got to "Like a diamond in the sky," making a diamond shape with her thumbs and index fingers.

The lady signer blushed bright red.

"What have I done? What have I done?" asked Kitty, worried that her flies were open or something.

"I'll tell you later," said the lady.

It turns out that that is the BSL sign for "vagina."

Up the pole

Providence has a sense of comic timing. Yardley Barnbrush is the council's Disabled Persons' Access Officer, taking the lead on all things Disabled Discrimination Act. He can be a little enthusiastic and is given to arriving at service points unannounced to throw his weight about. He it was who tried to ban all the pink books from Noddy Library because "they aren't high enough contrast for visually-impaired people." Today he decided to visit Spadespit Library.

Kelsie was minding her own business at the counter when she noticed a bloke she'd never seen before standing in the doorway with a big stick in his hands. Holding it horizontally he then did a passable impression of a bluebottle on a window. Forward he'd march, the ends of the stick would clatter against the dooway and thus repulsed he'd try again.

"I can't get in!"

"Pardon me?"

"I can't get in."

"Why not?"

"The stick won't go through the doorway."

"Why don't you turn the stick around ninety degrees? You'll be able to get in then."

"That's not the point."

"What is the point?"

"The doorway's not wide enough."

"Wide enough for what?"

"If a disabled person tried to come into this library they wouldn't be able to come in because the doorway's not wide enough."

At which point a lady on an electric buggy drove in and parked in from of the counter to return her books.

Hush, hush, listen who swears...

It takes a lot to upset Lippy. Today she is Very Cross.

"What a stupid arrangement this is. I'm trying to serve one of my talking book customers and all the while I've got lending library customers standing there tutting, tapping their feet and complaining about having to wait. And what for? To return books that could be left in a book drop bin or to ask when the library's going to open again. And the photocopier was dragged down and dumped on us and we don't have the first idea how the bloody thing works. And people keep asking us for change for it. The only reason why we have any money in the Section at all is that we've been told that we've got to take fines for overdue books that are being returned rather than telling them that it'll all be sorted out when the library re-opens. We've had to get an OXO tin to put the money in. So we've got all that hassle and what for? To issue and return a handful of books and to really piss off our usual customers."

I nip up and have a quick dekko at the Section again. I can see her point: it looks like a dog's breakfast.

Accessibility issues

An old dear, not one of our own, wanders into the office looking lost. She is closely followed by what looks like a charabanc full of pensioners. It turns out to be The Talking Book Club. The Special Needs Section is now so stuffed with a photcopier, Richard and Judies and trollies for returned books there's no room for them and they've had to come downstairs to meet in our training room.

Just around the corner there'll be blue skies ahead

Pottersbury Road Library was interesting: they're having disabled access doors installed and, as the school caretaker refuses to allow them to use the school entrance or the new doorway (the workmen having engineered a corridor of safety for customers which might have involved people walking in some brick dust) customers have to go around the back of the building and go in via the fire exit. Unfortunately there is no hand hold on the exterior of the fire exit door so they can't get in without banging on the door. I managed to get in by using my screwdriver as a jemmy. Hedi tried propping the door open with the only heavy-enough object available — a pedestal drawer unit — but people with trolleys couldn't get in. I'd say that this must be a killer for the visitor figures but we discovered that somebody's covered the counter sensors with blu-tack.

Speaking in tongues

It takes a lot for Billy Meredith to get really annoyed so this counts as a red-letter day.

He's just come back from a special event on the Mobile Library. Nancy Bickerdike arranged for a class of asylum-seekers' children to visit the Mobile, join the library and take some books out. You or I might have given the teacher the application forms beforehand so that they could fill them in during one of their English classes or something so they'd get some help with the forms. That didn't happen so Billy had to deal with thirty-odd enthusiastic young kids shouting fifteen to the dozen in whichever mother tongue(s) while the teacher who was supposed to be acting as interpreter and minder sat at the back of the bus having a nice cup of coffee and a bit of a gossip with Nancy. By the end of the session he was completely worn out and not entirely convinced that all the kids had been enrolled or got the books or information that they wanted but had no way of knowing one way or another.

"How did it go?" asks Mary.

"Really well," answers Nancy, "there were lots of kids and they were very enthusiastic. We should do it again some time."

Billy went livid white and stayed very quiet for the rest of the morning.

Roses grow on you

Another complication at Umpty: the library has no disabled person's access despite the requirements of the DDA. All hell breaks loose, quite rightly. It turns out that the problem lies with the local Township Committee, who vetoed the plans to provide ramps and a lift to the library on the grounds that this would mean building over a rose bed in the Umpty Park Conservation Area. As the rose bed is as derelict as the park it sits in it surprises nobody to find that there aren't any roses actually in it.

Still, the disabled would-be users of the library, lying thwarted in their beds of a night-time will sleep the easier knowing that should a rose ever be required to be planted in Umpty Park it shall have a home to go to.