The well-tempered liver sausage

I bump into Ken Barmy on the way home. He is extremely grumpy, even by his standards.

"I've spent the day looking at the sunshine on the windows and thinking that I could have had the whole week off."

"Why didn't you?"

"I decided only to have a couple of days because there was a meeting that my managers insisted we had to be at and there's quite a lot of stuff needs doing."

"That's a pain."

"I'll say. Especially after the buggers changed the date of the meeting to the end of last week and didn't tell any of us."

Drive-by

Bad news:
Due to the poor financial position of the council it has cut the car mileage allowances of staff.

Good news:
Staff with essential driver status are being sent on a course on how to use less petrol when you drive.

Drowning the Buttercup Queen

The Bobbing Up And Down Team broadcasts another inanity.

Brighten Up The Borough!
We are promoting a positive image of Helminthdale to the world. What would you say to somebody who wanted to know about your Helminthdale?

We might not be in the mood for it.

"Imagine the Black Death without the feelgood factor," suggests Sybil.

Class image

A teacher rings Senebene Library with a complaint. They are very irate because the library has sent a letter to a parent telling them that their child had written in some books they had borrowed from us.

"How dare you do that! She had not written in those books. I had written in those books."

"I'm sorry. We weren't to know that you were at fault and not her. Please could you remember not to do it again."

"But I always write in books."

"Please don't write in our books."

"I shall. I always write in books."

"But these aren't your to write in."

The last exchange was repeated ad nauseam.

It's no wonder modern youth has so little respect for other people's property.

Pull up a tin of pineapple chunksthey're playing our song, Matilda

Phone call to Noreen from the Land Beyond The Veil:

"We don't seem to have received this year's edition of Proctor's Directory of Assemblages. Could you chase it up for us please?"

"You've not got it because it's not on your standing order list."

No problem, monkeysocks

I really, really shouldn't do this. Not at all. I shouldn't. No.

I pick up a 'phone that's ringing unattended.

"Can I speak to T.Aldous please?"

"I'm sorry, he retired last month."

"But he just rang, leaving a message asking to ring him back."

"Ooh. I wonder if the Communications Team are still having problems with the response times on the voice over internet telephones."

Breaking news

There's no easy way of saying this. You might want to sit down.

Harold MacMillan is dead.


(Sorry about that. Some time soon somebody's going to have to tell the lotophagi in the Reference Library that the 1950s are dead and gone. I'm just getting some practice in, in case it turns out to be my job to do it.)

This is your leader speaking

Maisie has an idea:

"If I lend you my hearing aids you could switch them over to Induction Loop and then neither of us would be able to hear what he was saying to us."

Many exciting happenings to titillate the casual visitor

We're feeling better about our corporate IT bods. We've just found out that colleagues in a neighbouring library authority can't access The Bookseller's web site because their council deems it to be an entertainment site and have blocked it.

Ask not what your library can do for you

It's Friday morning and two members of staff have been sent downstairs for a two minute giggle break. They have now managed to compose themselves and can go back upstairs to look the part of sober-sided public library staff.

The customer's enquiry at the counter was: "Have you any books on how to stop me being a tosser?"

Apparently they kept a straight face for the whole of the transaction.

I want you out of town on the first stagecoach out of Elstree

A Manichean view of the library world would have it that there are people who take themselves very seriously, to the detriment of the service, and people who take the service seriously, to the detriment of themselves. I suspect I lie in the latter group.

We know one of the things that reference library staff do in the back room. Quarter of an hour before end of play you will notice Winnie leave the desk, go into the office, put her coat on and get ready to leave.

It's all from the learning tree

How modern reference librarianship works:

• The Reference Librarian rings the Regional Loans Assistant to say that we don't have a copy of the council's Unitary Development Plan.
• The Regional Loans Assistant finds the UDP on the council's web site.
• The Systems Librarian creates a catalogue entry for this online document, including the URL in the appropriate MARC tag.
• The Regional Loans Assistant sends the URL to the Reference Librarian and tells them that the customer can also look it up on the online catalogue.
• The Reference Librarian asks the Regional Loans Assistant if she can obtain a printed copy of the UDP.
• The Regional Loans Assistant suggests the Reference Librarian tries the "print" icon on the computer screen.
• The Regional Loans Assistant and the Systems Librarian wonder what the Reference Librarian is doing in that back office all day.

That's the reason why mankind was buried in ignorance for hundreds of years

I'm having a review meeting with Milton. Ever since we both concluded that we can't do anything because the IT section's put the blocks on all technical development work and the Library Service can't free up any staff to help with any of the project work on our schedules these meetings have been quite fun.

"We've done a lot of work on improving communications," says Milton.

"Have we?" I ask.

"Well, communications have improved."

"Have they?"

"Yes, of course they have."

"In Policy Team's last set of minutes it gave a list of Easter Holiday activities at Raccoonville Library. What was that about?"

"I've no idea. I don't know where that came from, it certainly wasn't discussed in the meeting."

"And that email I sent to Policy Team asking whether we were ever going to have librarians providing active input to the options available on the public PCs. How did that become Jack Harry emailing Frog to tell him that I was going to build a web site for teenagers and please could he ask them to tell me if they liked how it looked?"

"But communications are improving really, aren't they? They're just glitches. Has Jack Harry got back to you to let you know how many people will be in the training session next week?"

"No."

"Has anyone got back to you with anything for the web site about World Book Day?"

"No."

"I don't want to ask a third question do I?"

Plead the headaches

One of my colleagues in another place has just forwarded this e-mail to me, he is somewhat at a loss as to how to rectify it, particularly as they have five public and one staff PC at this branch.

"We are having complaints about the slowness of the computer, especially from one user. Please could you explain it, and try and speed it up, he says that it has been like this for a week and a half!! I know when I have been off the system crashed and Deidre said that two of you have been rectifying the problem. I have to report this as the gentleman is by my side.

"I have noticed for several weeks when I start this computer that it takes ages to get going, to the point where I think I am doing it wrong.

"Please can you assist and calm this user down.

"Thank you."

No, don't show us, just tell us

No.
No no no no no.
No.
No.
No no no.
NO.
No.
No...
No.
No.
No.

You don't need the other half of the conversation.

When people start calling you gentlemen it's time to go

I could spend quite some weeks telling you about the upgrade to our public computers, scheduled for two years ago.

Seeing as we're now into the business of having to wait until the IT guys have evaluated the impact of running the new version of Windows on the network; the evaluation work is scheduled for this Summer and that this is the third new version they've delayed the project for to evaluate I think I would lose the will to live.

We are going to mark this very special day by doing the same old rubbish we do all the rest of the year

I know one thing we're doing for World Book Day this year. We're not buying any new books.

A Bulgarian boll weevil mourning its first-born

T.Aldous is in high dudgeon. He's sorting out some problems with the building contract for Cattermole Street Library. Unfortunately for him, he's been sending emails to the wrong person.

"Wesley Hancock's retired," he tells Maisie. "He told me he was retiring at the end of February, which I would have thought would be the end of this week. He must have had some days' leave left to take because the cheeky beggar left last week without telling me."

Maisie is earning all her sainthood points.

But in spite of that

Amidst all the majesty and excitement it's easy to forget that we're in the business of providing a library service to the public. Those of you who are not in the business may be interested to know that we're now entering the most challenging part of the business year.

• We don't have enough staff to do what we do the way that we do it at the best of times. With frozen vacancies and retirements at the front line it's made all the more difficult. Consequently, for most of the year most applications for annual leave are turned down because "there's not enough staff on that day." All annual leave has to be taken, without exception, by the end of March. So everybody's on leave throughout most of March and the service is on its knees.
• All the expenditure that hasn't been allowed all year suddenly has to be done and dusted before the third week in March. Which means that you can't buy any of the things you wanted or needed for most of the year and can only buy stuff that can be ordered and delivered virtually overnight. Luckily, there's no money about this year so we may be spared the constant inflow of cupboards, desks, chairs and paperback spinners for no apparent reason. We may still cop for a pile of waste paper baskets, though.
• All our statutory statistical returns are done for the end of the financial year. Which means that this is usually the month when there's a mad splurge in book-buying for to meet those targets (luckily there's no money about this year so we won't be repeating the performance where 40% of the year's acquisitions are done in the last six weeks of the year). This is the last opportunity to bump up the visitor figures and to get them to borrow more books. Which we do by running additional events and promotional activities using the people we don't have available because they're on leave.

A new wrinkle this year is that Frog's discovered that a project that Mary told him didn't have any money left in it has actually got a big lot of money that's got to be spent by the middle of April. He can't buy books from it but can spend it on training events, author visits and poetry performances. He could have had an event every fortnight for the past eight months. But no, Mary thought that the money could be reported as having been spent on administration (and the money going where precisely?). And so Frog's desperately trying to put together a programme of events and activities for early Spring. (Which we do by running additional events and promotional activities using the people we don't have available because they're on leave.)

A tiny spark in the fog

It wasn't a big fire and there wasn't any damage. it didn't even set off the smoke detector.

(The smoke detector burnt out.)

I do symbolic dancing in front of the mirror

T.Aldous talking to Maisie:

"Get me a price for a new whiteboard for the staff room. We can put it next to the door to the ladies' so that we can put the Swine Flu updates there. They're quite cheap, so we'd probably be best getting a couple more, just in case.

"Somebody from Building Services should be ringing about the fire alarm at Spadespit Library. My 'phone's through to you so could you put it through to me when he does?"

T.Aldous has been retired for the best part of a month.

The trousers of an atheist

T.Aldous has burnt out the paper shredder.

Twenty miles from Colditz, Puss, and not a sign of Dick!

Working in a library is an opportunity to immerse yourself in posh intellectual chat. A case in point, overheard in the staff room...

"How's your leg?"

"It still hurts. I reckon I'm going to get a scar."

"Oh well, if we're going to be sharing scars I'll show you mine."

"Don't do it!!! If she ever offers to show you her scars make an excuse and leave. It's full of bite marks from the teeth of sailors of the seven seas."

"How did you know about that?"

"We had to take your trollies down when we had to get you out of Tunnel Dick."

"I've never been in Tunnel Dick."

"Yes you have. You've blanked it out. Must be the trauma of the cave-in."

"We had to dig you out."

"Ooh eck."

"It was a devil of a job pulling you out of Tunnel Dick."

"Well, that would make a change. Usually I'm having trouble..."

"Don't say it!!!"

"It was on the tip of me tongue."

"Not for the first time duckie!"

A banana skin at the Bodega Ballroom, Bognor

It must be Monday, the lift's out of order again.

A red mist spread over the lawn

It wouldn't be fair to say that people aren't trying to engage in change. If I take a step back and look at what people are doing and the tentative steps they're taking then by any objective measure they are trying to engage in change, however fitfully or wrong-headedly.

But I don't want to be fair.

We've had public access PCs for the best part of a decade now (a sobering thought in itself). I get 'phone calls like this:

"There's a problem with the booking system."

"What's up with it?"

"It's so slow we've lost the connection with it completely."

"Let's have a look... Yes, I'll need to report that to the help desk, it looks like there's a problem with the server. There's nothing I could expect you to do to try to solve the problem."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to report it to the help desk."

"Well what do I say to the people standing here wanting to go onto the PCs?"

Now what would you do chums?

Isn't this a strange conversation, for people who aren't crazy?

Browsing round Hannigan's Truss Boutique, with a mind to something for Mother's Day, I bump into Ken Barmy.

"Has he gone yet?" the bugger asks, knowing full well the answer.

"Not yet. Yours?"

"Nah. We're waiting for Jessie Norman to sing 'Hey Little Hen.'"

Some people are born optimistic.

It's gone the way of trams and Reckitt's Blue

Truth be told I'm feeling a bit knackered and more than a bit down. It's not the nonsense with T.Aldous that's getting me down really, that's all very sad but at some stage he's going to let go and get on with the rest of his life. It's the others that bother me: I really don't think they realise, or want to realise, how vulnerable they and this service really are. Some of them are living in a cloud cuckoo land, imaging they can carry on with a 1960s delivery model on the grounds that they are librarians and have the protection of the 1964 Library Act. And some of the others are just too damned ignorant to realise the effects of their actions and inactions. And I'm not sure that I care enough to try and manoeuvre people into situations where they will be playing to their strengths. Besides, who died and made me God?

In my other self I've been writing a blog about library developments. It's got links to stuff I think are useful and/or interesting and commentaries on pieces of work I'm doing, all the type of stuff you'd expect from "a professional blog." I've been telling myself it's a way of keeping tabs with the various strands of work going on at the moment and making notes for future reference, and perhaps something for me to use as a "look, I can do stuff!" flag for future employment. Thinking about it, though, I can't help suspecting it's really just an effort to put enough positive spin onto my work to persuade me it's worth getting up out of bed and getting out to the office.

I shall send over a couple of pet beavers to romp with you

A bunch of paperback spinners have appeared in the dispatch room. Despite there being no money about. Seth is heaving to, moving boxes and wheelie bins out of the way so that the spinners may be accommodated.

"Where are these for?" I ask.

"I've no idea, and neither has anybody else," he replies.

"Nobody else?"

"'T.Aldous has got the list,' that's what they told me."

"Does it matter if T.Aldous has got the list? They're in charge now so they can go wherever they decide."

"Oh no. They can't go anywhere until somebody gets the list off T.Aldous, just in case they get it wrong."

T.Aldous is retired. He doesn't work here any more. He is a member of the public.

Chairs XVII

With there being no money about and our not buying much in the way of new books we've actually been able to see an uncluttered corridor to the fire escape for only the third time in human memory.

Even those damned chairs have gone. I'd assumed that they'd gone out to their intended destinations.

How wrong could I be?

As I discovered when I had to go and check on the status of the network box in the utility room.

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.

Design and construction remediation

Some of the machinery in the boiler room hasn't been serviced in the two decades we've been here. Seth's been trying to sort out a problem with it and rang the company for advice. Which they gave, free and gratis, and well done to them.

The engineer on the line asked when it was last serviced and was a bit shocked to find it never had been.

"There's not often any major problem but it's as well to have someone check it out once a year or so, just to be on the safe side."

So a service engineer came out. He look at the kit and scratched his head.

"This stuff's self-servicing. You shouldn't need anyone to come out."

Seth explained what he'd been told and then pointed out some of the problems he's been having to deal with. That was at nine this morning. The engineer's only just re-emerged from the gubbins, having spent all day sorting out a problem that he reckons wouldn't have happened if it had been serviced properly.

The problem is that we've all worked here so long that this makes sense to us.

Just like proper soldiers all in a row

This behaviour's actually disturbing...

T.Aldous has come in to tidy his office and has just spent half an hour rearranging the cutlery drawer in the staff room.

Just like Mary's, T.Aldous' retirement is dragging on with all the signs of can't-let-go-itis. Unlike Mary, who retired properly when she finally, eventually, actually retired, T.Aldous just cannot realise the moment has passed. It's taking on elements of low tragedy and it is a great pity.

Buffeted by fate

Maudie's been asked to check the availability of the community room for a section of the council that's been irritating us greatly. She is delighted to find that it's already been booked.

"That's the day of T.Aldous' buffet lunch."

WHAT?

"What buffet lunch?"

"Haven't you heard about it? I thought everybody had heard about it."

"Why are we having a buffet lunch for him at the end of April?"

"It might be his last day at work."

The rough knockabout sport of the working classes

Maybelle's fairly despondent about an important piece of work. Partly because it's another long-runner subjected to Mary and T.Aldous having done their "we've been offered £100, we'll ask for £50 and we'll spend £20" number on it. Mostly because she and Doreen had been getting stuck into it when a retired librarian stuck his oar in.

I've been being relentlessly positive at her and accidentally provoked a backlash.

"Not wanting to be rude or anything,"

she said. Which is her equivalent of my "with the greatest possible respect."

"When you and Milton get together for one of your meetings it must be like plaiting fog."

Playing the saxophone so loudly his whiskers vibrate

For the third time today Maisie is hunting down T.Aldous to tell him there's a telephone call for him.

"It's just like he's never been away," says Maisie.

Listening to the wireless

Sheep City has had a public wireless network installed. And just as quickly uninstalled. The conversation between Henry Irving and the Project Manager from the IT Section was succinct.

"The wi-fi connection's been down for a week."

"Yes. We switched it off."

"Why?"

"Members of the public were using it."

"Err... Yes. It's a public wireless network. That's what we asked you for."

"It needs filtering to stop people accessing porn. You can't be having people accessing porn in council buildings. I'll send you a quote for the work to be done."

"So you've provided us with unfiltered access to the web?"

"If the public are using it it needs to be filtered."

"I know it does. Didn't you realise that when we asked you to supply us with a public wireless network?"

"I'll send you the quote for the work."

Luckily for Henry he had this conversation two days before the payment for the original work was due to be cleared so he put the blocks on it. Which led to this conversation:

"I'm chasing up the payment on the invoice for the public wireless network."

"Good luck on that. When we get a public wireless network we'll see about paying for it."

"You can't do that!"

"I think you'll find that I have."

It's a sin for a man to eat his food and cry at the same time

T.Aldous' frequent post-retirement guest appearances at the staff room table are not unprecedented.

A less-frequent, but more prolonged, ghost at the feat has been Tilly Floss. Every so often she'll meet up with Maisie and Betty for lunch and she'll pop in and say hello to everyone, which in itself is nice and friendly and what have you. Unfortunately, every so often she'll pop in, unannounced and park herself in the staff room for a warm while she's waiting for her bus. And eat her lunch, which she will have brought along with her "on the off-chance" she might be stopping.

Nearly three years ago she became a member of the public. The staff room is not a public area. People, many of whom don't know Tilly, leave their coats and bags and personal belongings here. And are surprised to come in for their lunch to find a stranger in their midst, unannounced and unheralded.

Questions have been asked of our managers.

"She's been doing it a long while. We can't doing anything about it now. Perhaps Maisie or Betty could have a word with her."

All the dangers of suburbia

The Post-Aldous Library Service is Terra Incognita, made the more nerve-wracking by the difficult times we find ourselves in. Whichever government is in power in the summer the council will still be skint; will still be closing down services; and will still be looking to save money, however wastefully. We're used to having the Library Service's budgets raided to pay for shortfalls elsewhere in the organisation, it's happened every year for a generation, but all the indications are that this time we're looking at serious cuts rather than trimmings-off.

We've been rather protected in the past by the fact of T.Aldous. While he hasn't been held in high regard within the council he has done a good job of attritional warfare over the years. On at least three occasions I know that Assistant Directors have approached the Library Service with a view to throwing the baby out with the bathwater and have given up, having had their heads completely done in by a mixture of irrational nit-picking and quite astute politicking. Unfortunately, this isn't a precision tool and collateral damage isn't unknown: Harry Presto was generally neutral-to-favourable about the Library Service but tried not to have anything to do with it if he could help it; Warner is an excellent departmental head but lately seems to have given up on the service in despair. This does us no good.

So the Post-Aldous Library Service is going to be dangerously interesting. If we ever get to see it...

We board the good ship Saucy Gibbon in ten minutes

"We have heard a rumour," sighs Noreen.

"Oh aye?" I prompt, trying not to sound too inquisitive.

"The reference librarians are having a meeting next week to discuss the standing orders list."

Oh joy.

Down time

T.Aldous is chatting with Betty.

"I'm coming in on a voluntary basis to tidy up a few loose ends. I'm not getting paid so I'm not coming in first thing at nine o'clock."

Maisie raises her eyebrows.

"Did you hear that?" she asks me. "He never got in at nine o'clock even when they were paying him!"

Spam javelin

Overheard in the staff room:

"Just think: what would be the chances of so many women in one room not having slept with Russell Brand or John Terry?"

"You mean you haven't?"

We're hanging by the lanyards

The council's Bobbing Up and Down team has been asking for volunteers for consultation groups for the new efficiency programme. I'm keeping a wide berth: it smacks a bit too much of asking turkeys to volunteer to Christmas dinner. Quite a lot of "the library service needs to be seen to be a team player" noises have been made and in the end Frog and Nancy have given in and signed up.

Apparently, a large part of today's meeting involved the facilitator's having to explain that this wasn't a turkeys for Christmas exercise. At some length.

The sincerity of purpose of the exercise is undermined somewhat by a printed summary of the conclusions of the discussion being handed out at the start.

Needing a more active pastime, like day-dreaming

I'm chatting with Ken Barmy and I told him of T.Aldous' parting words. Ken laughed himself silly.

"You're fucked, mate! Ours retired just after Christmas and is spending more time at work than when they paid her. Still has all the keys and everything. You can't even get a cup of tea without bumping into Banquo's ghost. You've got months and months and months of it to come."

Cheery soul.

End of an era

Well, that's been an interesting day.

It's been T.Aldous' retirement day. And by and large it's gone very well. We had the usual pot-luck brunch and people popped in and out of the place all day wishing T.Aldous well on his retirement. Then we had the traditional "get everyone together upstairs at the counter for to present somebody with their card and some flowers." (That bit took a few goes as he kept disappearing to mess around with the recycling bins or the booksale books.) And the gift we've all chipped in for will be presented to him at his official leaving do next week. All very nice.

The one cloud on the horizon was the final words of his accepting-my-retirement-card speech...

"As you know, I'm not one to let go easily."

Starched

Sometimes people provide so much too much information that it transcends the Yuk Factor and becomes almost lovely. Or at least dead funny.

Sybil was telling us about one of the caretakers at her old place who worked part-time as a life model for artists. She was also a bit too frank about her love life:

"One day we were sat there chatting when she told us that after her and her husband had had conjugal thingy she always 'tidied herself up with a freshly-laundered bit of muslin.'"

Elephants and bicycle riders never forget

Frog is a tad nonplussed. He's been running two externally funded reading projects projects (Book Off and Booked If I Know) for the past couple of years. Up until Mary's retirement she held the purse-strings and had to approve all expenditure. Which is why there hasn't been much, as nearly all the ideas he had were "too expensive." He did manage a "very expensive" launch for the projects, involving a performance poet who offered a mad big discount because he enjoys coming over here, but aside from that, nada.

Frog's received a letter from the funding agency today asking why none of the money's been accounted for and asking for a statement of expenditure by 1st April. So he asked Maisie how much money was left uncommited in that budget...

If you see somebody driving a Maserati full of stuffed pink elephants you'll know where he's been working.

Hedging your bets

I'm on the bus to Grimley, going down Tench Road, when I noticed the name of the road that goes down by the car park to The Farmer's Lament.

Edge Lane Street.

Paranoia

Some places are worse than us by a long chalk.

A friend's been retired a couple of years now. He's had to stop having lunch with one of his old workmates as their Chief Librarian saw them together last week and gave the poor woman a formal reprimand when she returned to the office.

I had wondered why, one time I went to visit him, he insisted that we drive thirty miles out of town to meet his colleagues for lunch.

A walrus striking a nonchalent pose

The Head of Leisure is at the Town Hall giving a presentation on the council's new core corporate values.

"Dignity at the workplace is one of our foundation stones,"

he tells the hushed assembly. Stage whisper from the cheap seats:

"He's not actually worked in local government, has he?"

I told them you're a big game hunter

Project management at the work place:

• Somebody asks the library service to do something. (Obviously, if somebody within the library service suggests that we need to do something then no further action is necessary.)
• Policy Team members blather about it awhile in an inconsequential manner until one of them blinks. They are deemed to be Taking The Lead On The Project.
• The piece of work is mentioned to somebody in passing
  • at the end of a long meeting about something else entirely that's got an action list a yard long; or
  • by the photocopier; or
  • by the door to the toilets.
  The work has now Been Delegated.
• Some days, or weeks, later the same piece of work is mentioned in passing, in similar circumstances, to somebody else. A Project Team Has Been Set Up.
• A chance conversation between the two people reveals:
  • they are supposed to be delivering a piece of work;
  • they are supposed to be delivering the same piece of work;
  The Project Has Been Scoped.
• By pooling their resources and making a long sequence of educated guesses they find out that they have about 85% of the information required to try and make any progress.
  The Project Has Been Resourced.
• Any attempt to make up the remaining 15% will be blanked because it requires a member of Policy Team to:
  • make a decision;
  • remember what the decision was; and
  • be prepared to be accountable for it.
  The Project Has Been Fucked.

"We'll be needing staff to take a lot more responsibility in the days ahead."

The first day you're content

It soon happens, doesn't it?

Posy waves a book under our noses.

"I've bought it for the staff library. It's a really good introduction to working in the modern library service."

It's a copy of "Workhouse Life In Helminthdale."

Let's spend the night together

Chronic insomnia is one of the Sunday night rituals. All the rest of the week the pillows on my bed are cosy and friendly. On Sunday nights I might as well be trying to doss down on a granite breakwater.

This morning, at a quarter to four, I woke up with a start from a dream about having a panic attack at work, only to discover that I was starting to have a panic attack about work. I don't know why. It's not as if it's any worse than usual. It's been awful in the past. Every evidence suggests that it's going to be awful in the future. But at the moment it's just mightily irritating, endlessly dispiriting and intolerably wearisome. There's no good reason for my getting worked up about it.

It's the end of day two and the Saxons are having a party

It's Salome's last day today. She'll be doubly missed: she's loud and raucous with a filthy sense of humour; and we're not allowed to fill any new vacancies until April, which is pretty much our usual state of affairs even when the council's swimming in money. Posy and Lola are bracing themselves for a sudden increase in workload, which is inescapable given all the programmes and projects being imposed on us from on high, on top of business as usual. There are going to be some seriously sore heads at the work place tomorrow.

T.Aldous' "end of the month" retirement turns out to be "retires at the end of next week." This should prove interesting as none of us are convinced that he realises he's actually going.

The Albert Memorial doesn't match your eyes

Many of our staff are imbued with the work of Harold Pinter and N.F.Simpson

"What's that Christmas card doing on that table over there?"

"Still? Oh it's that card T.Aldous brought us."

"It's a nice picture on the card."

"Oh aye, it's a nice card but what's it doing on there still?"

"Which card?"

"The one on that table."

"Isn't that the card T.Aldous got us for Christmas?"

"That's the one. It's a nice card."

"Oh, it's a nice card right enough. He told me so every lunch time."

"He told everyone. Every time I came in here he was telling somebody that he'd bought that card and wasn't it a nice picture."

"It is a nice picture, though."

"I wonder why it's still there."

"What?"

"That card."

"It's a Christmas card. What's it still doing on there?"

"That's what we were wondering."

"Nice picture."

"Why hasn't it been thrown away with all the other cards?"

"Perhaps it's a shrine to his retirement."

A boy's best friend is his bladder

Himself is traipsing to and fro to the bins in the back yard with pieces of paper. Excepting those he deposits on somebody's desk. And every piece of paper has a story. To be told. Twice. Or more. And then back into his office. It's rather sweet, really. Or would be if it weren't so very, very peculiar.

So we know that copy of the Library Association Record includes a picture of a children's library that looks like the one we had at Racconville at the time.

And we know that his heart's in the right place with that year-old cutting from the Catty Examiner about the boy with the bad leg.

Yes, I remember the work we put into the review of library membership in 1994. And what happened as a result (I'll leave that one dangling).

Oh, a Christmas card from Shagger Noakes, how nice.

And yes, let's either renew or return the 1988 Rose Grower's Annual.

I can't help it. I'm hooked. Because I know what's coming. I know it must be there. Each day brings it closer.

And today is the day.

The documentation for the People's Network project.

"You can't imagine the hard work and headaches that project caused," he tells me.

I. Can't. Imagine. The. Hard.Work. And. Headaches. That. Project. Caused.

My therapist very quickly got a handle on the hard work and headaches that project caused.

Not a jury would convict me.

Excuse me, have you got your ration book?

One of our Early Years Storytellers has just come back from a session at the Little Elephlops Nursery.

"I must be showing my age. One of the kids came up to me and asked: 'Are you a granny or a teacher?'"

Goodbat Nightman

I bump into Ken Barmy in the marquetry department of Hannigan's Truss Boutique and told him about T.Aldous' forthcoming retirement and his intention to do a bit of tidying-up afterwards. He was thougtful:

"They'll name a prawn cocktail at the Ritz after that man."

I couldn't argue with that.

Stock management for beginners

An edict from on high dictated that we have a small satellite of Catty Library in the new clinic that's opened on Franconia Square. The library provides the books and we seem to have paid for the furniture, too, and the receptionists issue and return the books. T.Aldous and Julia did all the settings-up and then dumped it on Hettie to sort out at the last minute because the librarians who do this sort of development work were too busy doing something or other and I made it extremely plain that no project brief or service outline meant no killing myself to set everything up in the week available after they'd waffled on for over a year.

Hettie did a sterling job of it. To the profuse thanks of T.Aldous and Julia [irony alert!]. Imagine her delight, then, to discover that it's apparently her job to nip over and straighten the books on the shelves, retrieving the ones that have been left around the reception area and putting them all in the right order.

Her ecstacy knew no bounds when she walked in and was told by the bloke who runs the coffee stall:

"Buy a cup of coffee and you get a free book, love!"

Chairs XVI

"You see them chairs?" asks Seth, flourishing towards the contents of the fire escape corridor. "Them chairs were only going to be there for a day or two."

"And do we know where they're going?"

"They're replacements for the new ones that arrived damaged."

"And where are they?"

"They're at Carbootsale, Roadkill, Spadespit and Umpty."

"So they've not come back here?"

"No."

"So that's why these are not going out there yet?"

"Correct. There's not the room at them libraries. Like we've got a lot of room here."

"So... How many chairs actually were damaged on arrival?"

"We don't know."

"So how do we know how many replacements should have arrived?"

"Correct again."

"Oh shit... Are you going to run a charity sweepstake on it?"

"I might do. It depends. We might want to be having one about whether or not he actually does retire before Christmas."

I've got a mackerel in my pocket. It's portable. And waterproof.

The snow has abated for a few days, though more is promised next week (oh joy) so we have now turned to that adornment to the thaw: The Enquiry Into What Went Wrong In The Snow. This is a traditional annual gavotte played to very strict steps. The tempo may vary with the character of the dancers but the steps are religiously adhered to.

1. There's a row in the local papers about the state of the borough's roads.
2. The opposition of the day say it's a disgrace.
3. The governing party of the day says that it was an unprecedented set of circumstances.
4. A press release is sent out saying that the gritters are working all the live-long day and that a huge amount of salted grit is being deposited daily.
5. An enquiry is set up.
6. The opposition ask why the council was unprepared.
7. The governing party says that all due preparations had been made, above and beyond those specified by central government.
8. A working group is set up to learn lessons and make recommendations.
9. The working group never meets.

It's all very traditional and lovely in its way. We ought to advertise it better, I'm sure it would draw in the tourists.

This year the press release said that they were putting out 1,000 tonnes of grit a day. Explaining the preparations that had been made, the Cabinet Member responsible told the council that there were fifteen days' worth of supplies in the Bismuth lane depot.

"The problem is that after the first week we'd used up 8,500 tonnes of grit and we were having to wait for fresh supplies from Cheshire."

Those of you who having been following the budget masterclass will be comfortable with the idea that 15 x 1,000 = 8,500.

When you look at the world, God must have been joking

I was going to ask the world what, exactly, librarians are for. I really am that annoyed. Anyone who has any dealings with librarians will tell you that anything that requires any input at all from them, let alone an actual decision, is such hard work that you might as well give the game up as a bad lot to begin with.

"The People's Network's going to be putting loads of PCs and the internet in all your libraries. What services do you want to provide with them?"

"We're setting up an new library web site. Could you let me have some information about the services you're providing?"

"There's a load of government-funded activity going on in the council to meet the e-government deadlines. We seem to be well-poised to be able to deliver quite a lot with very little extra effort, which should win us all sorts of brownie points with the councillors. How do you want to progress this?"

"We're putting together a few pages of links to web pages that our customers might find useful - children's reading sites; readers'/writers' pages; book review sites, etc. I'm sure you'll have some that you've found useful. I'd be grateful for any suggestions for entries."

All the above have one thing in common: response was there none. If selecting and describing information and reading resources for the public to use isn't the job of a librarian, what are they for? I won't go into the details of the latest disappointment: I love Frog like a brother but every so often he reminds me that he's a librarian.

Having spent most of the past two decades trying to develop and deliver public services using the interplay between librarians and the corporate IT department I suppose I should celebrate that I've managed to do anything at all. I suppose.

An then that's that Tom-fool, taking yet another bit of paper over to the bin. We've finally sort of had it confirmed a bit that he's retiring at the end of the month, which we're assuming is 31st January. We're reckless that way. He is, however, going to be coming back every so often on a voluntary basis to "tidy up a few loose ends." (Warning Doctor Smith! Warning Doctor Smith!)

Noreen asked me to go and ask Julia and Jack Harry how they wanted some stuff bought last year for a special collection cataloguing. The first part of the ensuing waffle involved two librarians wondering out loud whether they should go on the catalogue in the first place.

"After all, they weren't bought from the book fund."

It was left to me to point out that in principle all library resources should be on the catalogue so that people knew we had it and the auditors could see what we've been doing with the money. After another ten minutes of slinging peanuts down the Grand Canyon I'd had enough, pretended they'd answered the question and went away and did what I should have done in the first place.

Let us consider...

Talking to a colleague he tells me that their Chief Librarian retired recently but

"She's still coming in so that she can tidy up her office."

What?!?

"We're looking forward to the row when somebody either changes the locks or asks her to hand over the keys to the building."

Like peering down the slit of a piggy bank

The snowdrops aren't out yet but we have the first hints of Spring. A customer at Spadespit Library tells us that the council's going to be closing lots of libraries.

A God-awful small affair

I've cheered Noreen up, anyway...

Noreen and Betty are dead fed up. There's no orders going out and nothing coming in. There's no money about so we can't buy any books. There's stuff they could be getting on with but they're not sure if they should be doing it or whether it would be worth the effort anyway as nobody would give a monkeys. Noreen is the latest in an increasingly long line of people to say a variation on the old theme:

"I could just come in, sit around doing nothing then go home again and so long as I clocked in and clocked out at the right time nobody would care too hoots."

I had nothing useful to say to contradict this: I've come to the conclusion that I've spent the past two decades inventing pieces of work for myself to do in the futile (and ultimately failed) attempt to stop myself going mad with boredom.

We get a bit more bad news about a lot of confusion and indecision from Policy Group (they've decided to be confused but they're not sure if that's what they're doing).

"Every time I think we've reached the bottom we find a whole new pit to fall down," I complain. "My trouble is that I'm far too optimistic for this job."

"That's the good thing about working with you," Noreen replies, "you're always good for a laugh."

By the way, how is your ping-pong?

Fun at Senebene Library. A lady comes in to use the toilet (according to the district auditors this is the primary function of a public library service). Lucy explains that the light's on a sensor and comes on automatically when somebody goes in.

"Oooh! I can't be doing with that! I'll have to leave the door open just in case."

Lucy manages to persuade the lady that the door needs to be pulled to, for modesty's sake. And for everybody else's sake too, judging by the five minutes of prolonged grunting and straining that follow.

Then the lady starts screaming. Lucy rushes to the door.

"Are you OK?" she asks.

"You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

"Not at all. I'm just worried that you might need help. Are you OK?"

"I am crazy, you know..."

It's all to specification

It's the official opening of Carbootsale Library a week on Thursday. Up to yesterday no invites had been sent out because there's still some discussion about the appopriate wording. Which is to say, they've been written but T.Aldous is witholding final approval because he's not found anything he can change yet.

[Note to the micromanaged: always stick a typo somewhere between lines three and six of your text so that it can be amended. And one entirely-expendable sentence that doesn't quite fit and that you will fight almost to the death to retain before finally giving in with bad graces.]

So like I said it's the official opening of Carbootsale Library a week on Thursday and no invites had been sent out. T.Aldous has been out of the office most of the past week. Julia is in charge of Carbootsale Library and is responsible for all the arrangements and she finally plucked up the courage yesterday to get the invites printed and sent out at the half-past-the-eleventh hour.

T.Aldous found this out today and had Alwyn spending the morning whizzing round the Town Hall retrieving all the invites from the invitees.

The invites have been sent out once again. The difference this time being that the address labels for the councillors have been re-done to include the names of the wards that they represent.

The council is looking for efficiency and cost savings.

Always bring your own laughter, just in case

Oh this place...

"You know, I can't carry on getting up in the morning and coming here,"

says Bronwyn. Bronwyn is one of your no-nonsense, roll-your-sleeves-up-and-get-on-with-it sort of women. If it's getting to her, too, then things must be bad.

Florence comes halfway up your thigh

How to make sure you get more than your fair share of the office biscuits.

Overheard in the staff room:

"These aren't just chocolate fingers. These chocolate fingers have been hand-rolled on the thighs of dusky firemen from the Catbush Road fire station."

Young, dumb and ugly

One of "those" customers in lending today...

A lady came in with her child in tow. He's about eight years old and has every chance of never reaching his tenth. He spent most of his time running round the library shouting at his mother. He ran up to the reference library, pausing only to lean over the bannister to shout:

"Give me my fucking biscuits!"

Bronwyn and Sammi exchange glances when the lady dutifully toddles over and gives the brat his biscuits.

Top comes when she comes to the counter to get her books stamped. The lad goes steaming off on one and has to be persuaded to come back and join his mother. As she hands her books over to Sammi the child starts shaking his bottle of fleurescent fizz around.

"Ooh, you want to be careful there, you'll be spilling your drink. I've had one accident today, I don't think I want another," says Sammi.

So the child deliberately squirts her one.

"There's your books, Mrs.... Do come back soon," smiles Sammi.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: we have some very professional front-line staff.

I don't suppose you're accustomed to swimming in shark-infested waters

Lola is fizzing. Inevitably this must have something to do with Windscape Library. And so it does...

We've received the forms for the annual survey of the health and safety of our libraries. It's straightforward and common sense stuff - is there an unimpeded fire exit? is the first aid box in plain view? is there a muzzle on the tiger? - which we fill in, send back to Health & Safety and the council's insurance premiums are kept down to the merely exorbitant.

Windscape Library has sent theirs back with no effort at completion. Instead, scrawled across the top in LARGE WRITING is the message:

Lola,
This is unnecessary. I shall speak to T.Aldous about it.

Lola is debating whether or not to send it back with a note saying: "Get this filled in, pronto!" She feels that this may be a little wishy-washy.

Chairs XV

Is it that time of year already? A pile of new chairs have arrived and are stacked up in the fire exit corridor.


But there's no money about.


Ah... these are replacements for the chairs that arrived in November, which are apparently faulty. The fault being that they arrived and were accepted when T.Aldous was on holiday. Seth's been given the job of retrieving the faulty chairs so that a like-for-like swap can take place once the new new chairs have been accepted.

Yer brother's just killed yer kestrel; go and warm up the bees!

How budgets work:

Q: Michael has £5,000 in his furniture budget. He has secured a quarter of a million pounds in grant funding from a quango for to provide a new collection of learning and literacy resources including books and handouts for to support the books. The funding is dependent on his spending £1,000 on furniture for to house and display the new materials in a useful and attractive way, with the necessary bit of branding to acknowledge the source of the funding. What is the nett benefit to the local authority, the library service and the public?

A: None. The Finance Section refuses to let Michael spend his £1,000 from the furniture budget on this furniture as it is not essential expenditure.

Sidenote: The council has just spent £945 launching its new Literacy Strategy.

Hooray!

This year's Hooray For Helminthdale calendars have finally arrived. Uncannily, they're the same as last year's and the year before's....

Snowballs

Any poor, shivering wretch looking to come in for a warm in Helminthdale's libraries is in for a bit of a shock. The heating's off at Spadespit and Milkbeck, though the girls are keeping the service running with layers of wincyette, Red Army underwear and a fund of blue language. At Catty Library the ice in the gutter is stopping that leak in the children's library that somehow missed the snagging when the building was refitted. The school hosting Pottersbury Road Library is closed because the teachers insist on having heating (softies). Roadkill Library's closed because the children's centre that hosts it had a complete boiler failure.

Here at Ice Station Zebra the heating's full on and we're hitting a good nine degrees centigrade so long as nobody opens any doors to try to come into the library. This isn't as often as it might be as customers have to come in via the shopping centre, the entrance to which is a steep downward-sloping ramp of polished vinyl tiling. (Why? The centre was built on the side of a hill and they could have chosen any place for to put an entrance that was level with the surrounding terrain. It was probably the same dozy design pillock who removed all the rough granite setts between the tramlines in the centre of Manchester and replaced them with polished slate, just right for the pedestrian areas in our climate!)

Our senior managers' new policy of active positive engagement with the lower ranks has nothing to do with the fact that their room is five degrees colder than the open office.

"Never mind," says Seth, "it'll soon be Christmas."

Telegramme for Larceny Whipsnade!

How budgets work:

Q: John has £5. He knows that the book that he will buy in February will cost £4.50. In January he buys some apples for 50 pence. How much does John have left?

A: John has overspent by 25 pence. In December the Finance Department identified this as a budget with a projected underspend and accordingly removed £4.75 from the account without telling John that they'd done it.

Which is why Frog and Bronwyn are spending money they haven't got on an author event for World Book Day and not worrying as much as usual about how much it's going to cost.

We'll have to think of something a bit more convincing, won't we?

It isn't one of our good days. In the midst of despair I go and get myself a cup of tea. Frog's already had the same idea.

"Greugh."

"I agree."

"Sigh..."

"It's shit, isn't it?"

Then Frog has an awful epiphany:

"We're just marking time before retirement, aren't we?"

Not a survival biscuit

Helminthdale continues to struggle in the snow. Word comes to us from the housing office on Brocklesbury Road:

"We have put a sign up telling residents that there is no nutritional value in eating snow. Even the yellow stuff."

We are cheered up enormously by this news. Thanks guys!

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."

Famous for dropping pre-packed bacon

T.Aldous appears to be clearing his office.

Leastways, he is removing paperwork from his office and depositing it in the confidential waste bins.

One piece of paper at a time.

Seth offered to move one of the bins to his office. Oh no, it would get in the way of things.

Seth offered to give him a box to hold the paperwork in so that it could be carried en masse to the bins. Oh no, it would get too heavy.

Seth offered to bring one of the bins over, empty the very heavy box into it and then take it away, once or twice a day as necessary. Oh no, that would never do.

So T.Aldous is clearing his office one piece of paper at a time.

Time for the odd-man-out round

Half the shops in Helminthdale have got closing down sales and even the charity shops are struggling. So it's probably not a good time for one of the council's free magazines to be advertising the shopping facilities in the neighbouring boroughs of Bencup and Pardendale.

Theoretically, the people running Helminthdale market could have advertised in said publication but they, like us, have had their already minuscule marketing budget frozen.

If we ever had to go in for sponsorship the council would probably require us to take coin from The North of England Book-Burning Association.

Descriptive cataloguing

A 'phone call from Henry Irving.

"You know the Contemporary Local History Collection?"

"Yes..."

"What type of material would you say gets added to that collection?"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, forget what's going on at Dutch Bend and Catty."

"In that case... material that's of historical significance or else of lasting import."

"Excellent! Thanks. I knew I could count on you for just the right sort of bullshit for these bloody reports."

Gelid

Frog gave me a lift back to the library after a meeting over at Umpty. As we got in the car we noticed the temperature gauge:

26F Risk of ice

Given the very heavy snow we had to smile. Little did we realise that it was a prophesy...

The multi-story car park in wonderful downtown Helminthdale is an unlovely object: a rotting concrete skeleton of a thing that would be condemned if the Borough Engineer's Department wasn't under express orders by the owners (the council) not to even look at it. To make it easier not to look at it, all the staff in that department have been made redundant and invited to apply for half the number of jobs they started with.

Driving up the steep slope to the entrance it became very apparent that the council's depending on the traffic to do the gritting for them. Even worse, there was a queue, stretching the length of the ramp. The reason?

"Ticket machine's not working. You'll have to walk over here so that I can have a look at your ticket and let you in."

I could sit and count my hair

Bronwyn's turn to cover the Reference Library enquiry desk.

"We had four enquiries. One was: 'have you got a pencil?' Another was: 'can I borrow your pencil sharpener?'"

She is not impressed. Nor, indeed, is Posy who took her turn yesterday. They're both unhappy that they're having to sit at the enquiry desk while the reference library staff sit in the back doing things we know not what.

Especially when it turns out that one of the things they've been doing is typing out "Do not remove from the library" labels and sticking them all over the magazines that we've bought for the family literacy groups to borrow. They were only in the Reference Library temporarily for a month.

And we won't going into the items we've found that they've ordered by 'phone without an official order number; not from the authorised supplier; and to be paid from a budget they wouldn't have even if all the budgets weren't frozen...

Slinging the mince pie up the lavender passage

The spending freeze is starting to bite. For the first time in recorded history there are less than a dozen boxes in the fire escape corridor without there being a fire inspector on the premises. In fact, there are so few of them they could be stored in the dispatch room, but for the arrival this morning of a load of Confidential Waste bins.

Could it be that T.Aldous is going to clear his office before retiring?

Animal magic

Being naturally inquisitive, I asked Ken Barmy about his reference to Johnny Morris the other day.

"When did you ever see any librarians on a David Attenborough programme?" he asked. "It just doesn't happen does it?

"Oh, they had one on "Zoo Time" with George Cansdale but that was a lifetime ago. Besides they had to shoot it because it bit one of the keepers."

I had to go for my bus when he started explaining why Ann-Ann and Chi-Chi didn't get it on down because of a lack of cardigans and leather elbow patches.

Tonight we're going to party like it's 1699

Well, here it is: 2010 and he we are. Hello.

Those of you wondering what this blog is about could do worse than to have a look at this bit. For those regular readers (bless you both), perhaps this is time for a moment's reflection.

Firstly, and seriously, I'd like to mark the passage of those who didn't make it to 2010. I know I've been lucky personally in this regard, though there have been a few times latterly when I've wondered when that luck would run out. Too many of the people I know, either in real life or in cyberspace, haven't been so lucky. Best wishes and sympathy to all who are left behind.

Some of my regular contacts in the blogosphere have gone quiet lately, either here or in their own blogs. I hope that all is well with them and that they've just found better things to do that are both time-consuming and wonderful. You're always welcome back here. You can even throw buns if you want.

And that leaves you, dear reader. I'm still amazed that you keep coming back to read the deranged ramblings of a bitter old man but I have come to welcome your presence. Thank you for your patience.

Whatever happens in the fantasy world of Helminthdale, do have a good 2010, one and all.