They tried to stop owls wearing duffle coats

(after Taylor and Lane)

Working all the day inside the library.

Trying hard to think of things we do.

And when the focus shifts to some folk

We've simply

No clue.

Some folk deal with customers and help them.

Some arrange for an event or two.

But some don't serve or plan or buy or somesuch,

So what do they do?

They'll walk around and round with just a pencil.

And they'll tell you

Just how busy

They have been.

But when you look around in their bit of the library

No evidence of work

Is ever seen.

Change is coming in, we can't avoid it.

Harsh winds of business sense are blowing through.

If they will pretend that

It's not happening

Then what will

They do?

Squib

One corner of the office is having a touch of the Cyndi Laupers:

"Come to work in the morning light.

No idea if I'm doing anything right.

I'll soon know if I get it wrong.

Librarians having fun.

Librarians having fun."

Tonight, Matthew, I shall be Edmund, Earl of Warwick

A guest entry to the songbook, with apologies to Innes

Listen to the calendar,

It's getting way past April.

We don't know what we're doing or what for.

How can we get away with

Shambling day to day?

We don't have clouds and smokescreens any more.

You know that thing that you've been doing?

Well, it's not important.

Although everything's a top priority.

And everything is all-fire urgent,

Needed yesterday.

But will we ever use it? Well, we'll see...

Reality is scratching on our doorstep.

The bogeyman breathes on the window pane.

The year half gone it finally dawns on us

It's library business planning time again.

So will we know what's needing doing

And just how to do it?

It is assumed but really I'm just not so sure.

Planning how to talk about it

Is a plan too far.

Seems we're not business planning any more.

The cold winds blow and we lie unprotected.

Rudderless, we float the stormy tide.

Overstretched staff, we see strains are showing

And managers just in it for the ride.

Listen to the tolling bell, it tells of cuts approaching.

What should we keep? What can safely let go?

What priorities to work to?

How are they resourced?

If we don't know by now we'll never know.

If we don't know by now we'll never know...

A-Ha-Ho Ho-A-Ho

(after Shelley)

Sitting here at my desk, all unknowing

Of anything going on

Within the library.

Communication's heavy going

We're feeling woebegone

Within the library.

We may break out the Ouija,

Tap a table or two,

Consult the runes

Or other misbehaviour.

If any were there to ask

It might not be such a task;

But outside the bunker

We're in the library.

Stap me vittles, we're back on the merry-go-round!

We gather that the Reference Librarians are having a meeting.

"Are they doing anything good?" I ask.

"They're coming up with a list of standing orders," says Noreen.

"Haven't they already given you a list of standing orders?" I ask.

"Yes."

"That they rewrote in February?"

"Yes."

"And that you've sent to the suppliers...?"

"Yes."

A glimmer:

"They can't remember what was on the list, can they?"

"No."

Hev yew got yer card, boy?

The Romance of Libraries (after Smethurst)

Oi've gotta girl,
A very nice girl,
Works in the library.
I say: "I love you" to her
And she says: "Shush!" to me.
Oi likes her looks
As she stamps my books
A new date every day.
And as we thusly
Bill and coo
My love will softly say:

"Hev yew got yer card, boy?
Hev yew got yer card?"

Contrary Mary
Stamps "due back first January"
And she's my little library gal.

Hi there flappers and bobbysoxers!

Being for the benefit of the public

For the benefit of you and me
The folks at Helminthdale B.C.
Reorganise.
The random mix of old and new
Will like as not bamboozle you.
What a surprise!
What's opened close,
For these read those,
And nothing's ever really what it seems
'Cos they're running contradictory regimes.
In these ways
Helminthdale says
We'll challenge the world!


Helminthdale's disguise with dog ends

Imagine yourself in a box by a river
With trampled-down dreams and blinkered red eyes
Somebody calls you, they speak awful slowly
And tell you the usual lies.
"Yes sir, this council's concerned for the best
"And the best, sir, is ready to come.
"Watch as we weave our mysterious ends."
And he's gone.
Helminthdale's disguise with dog ends.

Follow him through to a thinly-staffed counter
To care-less execs
Who have rocking-horse brains.
Try to get hold of reforms or resources
From people who like giving pains.
Newspaper stories will tax you to hell
You'll want them to take you away
But if you climb back and you do as you're told
Then you're gone.
Helminthdale's disguise with dog ends.

My very good friend...

(After Waller)
(A long way after...)

My very good friend the timesheet says
He doesn't like the hours I keep
He says he thinks I should get sleep
And he suggests I quit the library.

My very good friend the laptop says
He's feeling somehow quite bemused
The work I've done that isn't used
And he suggests I quit the library.

And there's a very friendly fellow who prints
All the news about this joint
And now and then he sends me blueprints
Of projects that might have some point.

My very good friends and neighbours say:
"Is this a job you want to keep?
"Rewards are few and cuts are deep
"And we suggest you quit the library."

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.

Thursday singalong

Stacked books
But the stats aren't quite as rosy as it looks
So I say
In my firmest way on a spring-like day, with reasons why
That by July
We should have a plan of what we're going to buy.
But we didn't, as the eye can see
In my library.
Nora Roberts, Tommy Steele and me
In my library.

Picked up
Some marketing examples from a book
We could use
To get us in the news, influence some views, get hits,
Visits.
Our managers had fits and even got the shits.
We're instructed that we have to play it dumb
In my library.
So we're keeping schtum just like mum
In my library.

Tried hard
Printed reader advisory notes on card
And stuff.
But they gave us guff until we'd had enough and we called it a day
OK
We said bollocks and we said to go away.
And the air turned grey for a day
In my library.
Which it tends to do most every other day
In my library.

I can visualise the cartoon for this

Lots of brass for this one. (Tune after HMHB)

I find them cluttering the stairs
And corners where nobody cares.
They fill that office over there.
They're even underneath my chair.

Any space that's going spare.
That meeting room we only share.
And while I stifle all my screams
Frequently they're in my dreams...

Tatty booksale books.
Tatty booksale books.

Coming to the library
What's the first thing that you see?
Orange-boxed in serried rows,
Where they come from no-one knows.

Becalmed, bewildered and bemired,
Ageing bookstock looking tired.
Testament to lending vice.
Pages stained with something nice.

Tatty booksale books.
Tatty booksale books.

(instrumental)

Tatty booksale books.
Tatty booksale books.

In the halls and by the walls
And where the friendly postman calls;

Tatty booksale books.
Tatty booksale books.

Every day, in every bay
And they just won't go away.

Tatty booksale books.
Tatty booksale books.

For miles and miles and miles
They are stacked in messy piles

Tatty booksale books.
Tatty booksale books.

Or else sometimes when we can
They'll be in the library van.

Tatty booksale books.
Tatty booksale books.

Where once there may be ten
There'll be twice as much again.

Tatty booksale books.
Tatty booksale books.

And I turn away and flee,
Thinking: "they'll not follow me."

Tatty booksale books.
Tatty booksale books.

And they go on and on and on...

Tatty booksale books.
Tatty booksale books.

The forest is breathing along with us tonight

In a lonely library
Where the shelving butts on a leaking wall
Most people look for another library
Ill luck besets them to hear the call...

Library...
In the stone age.
Library... cast a sigh.
Where you can't act your own age
And careers come to die.

Library...
Boxing clever
Pile 'em up, pile 'em high
Like some card Tower of Babel
Climbing up to the sky.

Your own locker space;
Your own locker key;
Your own half-chewed biro;
A cold cup of tea.

Library...
Mushroom-managed,
Crises crafted with skill.
With your confidence damaged
You just wait for the kill.

Library....
Library...
Librar... eek!

Somewhere in the library
You may see the right book.
You may see the right book
Although it's been misshelved.
And sadly you know,
You know even then,
That you may never
Find it if you try again.

Somewhere in the library
There will be a stranger.
There will be a stranger
Just as perplexed as you.
They'll struggle and curse
And yet what is worse
They will have worked there since June '82.


A hundred and one pounds of fun
That's our new acquisition
Come and have a look
At a reference book
Tonight...

Speaking of these directories
Set in six point jargonese
Squint at it mint
While it's still out in print
And sight.


Happy talking talking library talk,
Talk about things you'll never do.
You got to have a dream.
If you don't have a dream,
How'll they ever have a dream to screw?

Talk about the stock
Chosen for the shelves.
Popular and useful, naturally.
Talk about the staff
Valued for their skill
Trained, empow'red, and with authority!

Happy talking talking library talk,
Talk about things they're going to rush.
You got to have a dream.
If you don't have a dream,
How'll they ever have a dream to crush?

SIngalong

Have yourself a merry little library.
Hear the bookshelves groan.
If you want to stock-edit then you're on
Your own.

Have yourself a merry little library
Watch career hopes fade.
See them ruthlessly deskill you down to what
You're paid.

I hear that there's libraries
Where the book stock's bright and new
And staff do well.
Such cruel tales they tell
To the likes of me
And you.

Have yourself a merry little library.
Watch the gutters rot.
Some day next year they will be replaced
Or not.
So lend a hand in the land that Santa Claus
Forgot.

As heard on Radio Luxembourg

One for Gadjo to sing along with, tucked up by the fireside with his TV Comic annual and a well-known hot malted milk drink.

We are the special people
We've got special cups.
There's saucers, too
If we would use them,
Barred from view
'Cos you'd abuse them.

Would you like our dinky milk jug?
Would you share our toys?
Well, we don't think that would be right
And so they're stashed well out of sight
In a cupboard locked up day and night.
We're special girls and boys.

When I get any good at this I'll make up me own quotations

Today is National Poetry Day today and this year the theme is Work. You've not heard such language. Only to be expected when the key component of Work is "book."

To raise the tone a bit...

I'll tell you a story about our library
Full of potential like the nuts on a tree.
Racks of magazines
That you can browse
So long as you like textile industries,
Or you smith, gild or dowse.
"International Brocade,"
"Modern Madder" and
"Fluffed-up Flannel News."
And we don't buy "The Oldie."
I've got the periodical news.

Our serials lists are set as in glue,
Reflecting the needs back in 'seventy-two
Of two firms who used to subscribe
To the coffee mornings of the librarians' wives.
"Buttonholing Today,"
"Lady Milliner," and
"Three-Ply Rayon News."
But we don't buy "The Beano."
I've got the periodical blues.

The mags that we get
Have a certain cachet:
They're never read before
We throw them away.
Change our selection?
Don't make me laugh:
If it's popular
It'll only bring in
All the riff-raff.
Spend your service's worth
On these luxury
Subscription renewals.
No, you can't read the paper.
I've got the periodical blues.

Six-five special

Roll out your dancing trousers!

(with all due respects and abject apologies to Buddy and Bill)

The calendar says two-oh-oh-eight
But here it's 1958
And I'm working
In the library.

We automate, lay networks down,
But act like we're still stuck in Browne.
It's not working
In the library.

Oh, library! library!
What will become of me?

I say that projects are months late
But still they stall and obfuscate.
This is 'working'
In the library.

(isn't-rumental)

...Yes I'm working in the library.

Oh library! library!
When will retirement be?

The leadership's a formless game:
Disrupt and change and stay the same.
Oh it's painful
In the library.

Painful
In the library...

------

One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock block.
Five, six, seven o'clock, eight o'clock block.
Nine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock block.
We're gonna block around the clock tonight.

Get your business plans filed in that tray
You'll not get any done this day.
We're gonna block around the clock tonight;
Prevaricate and wait and keep lids tight.
We're gonna block, grid-a-lock and crock the lot tonight.

We've given you a job to do
Now don't get thinking we'll help you.
We're gonna block around the clock tonight;
We'll use a sock to block any chinks of light.
We'll run amok, all to cock, around the clock tonight.

(guitars and buck-passing)

We've vague outcomes kept 'neath the veil
Set up so you can only fail.
We're gonna chock around the clock tonight;
Chuffin' eck we'll wreck anything that's right.
Gonna chock, gonna block around the clock tonight.

You're trying to escape your fate.
We garble, muddle, complicate.
We're gonna block around the clock tonight;
Post-hoc schlock will make it all a fright.
Gonna knock all to cock all you think you've got tonight.

(saxophones amidst the scapegoating)

So your deadline's passed, you're running late
Soon you can procrastinate.
We're gonna block the lot and keep things tight.
We're goona progress-lock everything in sight.
We're gonna block, gonna block the whole damn lot tonight.

90% Ovaltine

By way of being a hymn to the librarians in one of our main libraries...

Now we're fully automated
We don't need all them there cards,
Kept in date and surname order
Stuck in trays in serried yards.
What? You wouldn't want to lose them?
"They may fill some unknown void."
If you've time for real-time update
Could be you're under-employed.

I shall drink from your gumboots some invalid wine

A bit upbeat for me, it must be all this sunny weather and ladies in thin frocks. Three o'clock alliteration, but no apologies from me.

The Process Change Ball (after the Brothers Sherman)

We were pootling along unhappily
When some really odd things we began to see:
Our bosses sang a new song.
The same old things still went wrong.
And then things started to get a little strange
When they said: "now listen up, we've got to change.
"Let's re-engineer
"Make it nice and clear
"Refocus and transform it all!"

Come on and crawl
From the wreckage and all.
And a happy time we'll have there,
One and all
At the Process Change Ball.

So we got enthused and set about the task
Of identifying key goals, a big ask.
"Why get ourselves in a tizz?
It kind of works as it is,"
Some soi-disant professionals so said.
While the leaders looked on, lost and looking lead.
What a lark it is,
Straight from the ark it is
Gosh what a buy-in and all!

Come on and crawl
From the wreckage and all.
And a happy time we'll have there,
One and all
At the Process Change Ball.

The Reference Library

Apologies to Mister Gershwin and even more apologies to Messrs Kern & Hammerstein...

The Reference Library

Here I am sat in the Reference Library
Hoary old stock on the shelves to see.
Anything useful is in the back room.
Librarian's on leave and she's got the key.

Old man library, that Reference Library,
It must know something
It don't say nothing.
It just keeps mouldering,
Just keeps mouldering
Along...

It don't stock-edit.
There ain't no guiding.
And them who might help
Have gone in hiding.
That Reference Library
It just keeps mouldering along...

You and I
We sweat and strain,
Hope for something useful
But we search in vain.
Search that PAC.
Send email.
Look amongst the shelves.
And you'll likely fail.

I am weary
And sick of trying.
The stock ain't used none
But they keep on buying.
That Reference Library,
It just keeps mouldering
Along.

Are you still knitting that tambourine?

I asked: "What would be the backing music to your library?" You said:

• Benjamin Britten playing "The Sun Has Got His Hat On" on his ukelele -- 7%
• "Blind Lemon's Penitentiary Blues" -- 7%
• Herbert Von Karajan conducting "Gotterdammerung" very, very slowly -- 7%
• Herman's Hermits singing "Something Tells Me I'm Into Something Good -- 15%
• Kylie Minogue singing "I Should Be So Lucky -- 61%

Sadly, nobody went for Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo" or The "Dead March" from Saul.

There are obviously a lot of library folk out there fancying themselves in pert gold hot pants!