The year in pieces

I'm not re-animating this blog. This is a coda or end-piece, or codpiece if you will, to explain why I feel that we have come to a close.

The world of Helminthdale Libraries is become a darker, more savage one than the one I had been chronicling. To be sure, there was always that cruel feral streak of the girls' playground about the place and there were always too many smiling assassins but things have grown appreciably worse as Call Me Dave's austerity measures have hit what was already a basket case of a local economy.

I was having a drink at Bronwyn's leaving do — the latest of many and only the last of this year's — and it was depressing to realise looking around that nearly all the people in the room were historical footnotes, at best, as far as the Library Service was concerned. Including myself.

And the real bloodbath has hardly started: next year, although no libraries are closing there'll be a major cull of front-line staff, books and other resources. Caretaking is already a thing of the past so God alone knows how the buildings will be staying open, what with hardly anyone to staff them and roofs held on with sticky-backed plastic.

For all his many and various faults it's hard to escape the nagging confirmation that the idiot T.Aldous presided over a Golden Age. Sadly, so much of the managed change that could have eased the pain of the new horrors, or even forestalled some of them, were blocked as efficiently and ruthlessly as were all the other grim realities of the new millennium.

But that's all history now.

I can't really bring myself to write about what's happening here. I'd feel like a hospital orderly describing the last days of a dying vagrant. And I'm not up for that.

It's been a great ride and it's given me the opportunity to chat with some lovely people. May Providence look after you. Thank you and goodnight.

I think I'll go home now.

Infinite similarity

I really am sick and tired of this fucking place.

And when the music stops...

It had to happen.

It only takes the merest mischance, what with our poor communication and documentation; chaotic management; and staff so thinly-spread that they spend more time whizzing round the borough to provide emergency cover at libraries than they do seeing family and loved ones.

On the morning that Helminthdale Central Library, our flagship library mind, was being kept open with three staff Kelly and Norma turned up at Windscape Library.

"What are you doing here?" asked Norma.

"I'm covering for you, you're on holiday," said Kelly.

"But I'm not on holiday until next month," replied Norma.

"Could you not take the day off? I'd like to think I didn't get up an hour early to get the bus over here just to waste my time having to go back to Helminthdale."

Walking through an empty house

The office is like the Mary Celeste without the crowd scenes.

• Maudie and Maisie are attending a meeting about the future of their jobs
• Library Policy & Strategic Management Team (this week) are wherever they are today. Somebody rather tactlessly wrote "Missing In Action" on the staff notice board and there was a bit of a to-do as to whether or not there was a space between n and A.
• The Acquisitions Team (both of them) are in a meeting with Bronwyn to try and work out what on earth is going on with one of the new collections that somebody higher up is supposed to have sorted out.
• Frog is out doing a summer story session with some blind children in Umpty.

So it looks like I'm in charge. That being the case, I wonder if it would be an abuse of executive power to tell the lending library to stop diverting all their 'phones down here.

The equivalent of having your legs firmly shackled in a mangle

There's nobody officially in charge at Helminthdale Central Library today unless it happens to be me or Frog. Posy's theoretically in charge this week but she's been press-ganged into being the responsible adult at Umpty Library today.

This despite Verity and Pansy being on site all day. Verity and Pansy run two of our busiest branch libraries but Julia has decreed that Umpty Library cannot be without A Professional. Unlike all the other libraries in the borough, including Helminthdale Central which is three times busier than Umpty.

More pockets than balls

What a day.

The good news is that both Group Librarians are on leave, which leaves every library in the borough leaderless and rudderless, which is pretty much business as usual really. Luckily, most of the front-line staff (even the ones you'd want to shout at) know the business inside and out and can make a better fist of trying to deliver a service without having to deal with the drama du jour. The management of the service seems to benefit also: to my certain knowledge there have been three decisions made today.

Where it all falls down, as per bloody usual, is procedure and resources. If something goes amiss at one of the libraries the only people who can authorise spending from the appropriate cost codes is the Group Librarians. Presumably, they also have control of whatever budgets we're using to pay for the extra hours of casual staff we're not allowed to be using any more.

It's as well that we are (presumably) paying for the extra staffing because we are really at the edge this week. Helminthdale Central Library, the borough's flagship, was scheduled to be staffed by one library assistant and Frog. Except that the library assistant was also scheduled to be working at Epiphany Library, same as usual on a Tuesday. Posy, who is the only Assistant Librarian in this half of the borough, spent all last week covering for library assistants at Senebene, Milkbeck and Spadespit libraries and is this week covering for Maybelle, Doreen and the vacancy that was Salome's old job whilst also filling in at Catty Library.

Posy's also pissed off with Frog because Doreen told her to arrange entertainers for an event at Senebene Library and that Frog would pay for it. This came as news to Frog, who has just enough money to pay for the Summer Reading Game and perhaps two reading events in the Autumn if nobody raids the budget.

Dorothy was sent out to run at Spadespit Library only to find that the Saturday Assistant who'd come into provide support wasn't allowed a key to the library. Luckily, Hattie had been there on Saturday and was in Helminthdale Central long enough this morning to put the keys back in the box, so there was a set that Dorothy could come back to pick up. I think Hattie ended up at Cattermole Street Library in the end.

There was also a bit of a to-do because there wasn't anyone available to do children's story time upstairs on Thursday because Posy's scheduled to be doing it at Milkbeck and Frog, who was assumed by somebody to be available to do it but hadn't been asked, can't do it because it would have been his day off in recompense for having come in last Saturday to do a children's event that nobody else wanted to do was available for to do but he's had to come in anyway to do a family literacy event nobody else was available for either.

I was asked if I fancied driving the mobile library on Thursday. I gracefully declined.

On a clear day you could see the fog

One hundred years ago today...

I don't know how on earth we're running the ship this week, and we're nowhere near Summer Holiday Hell yet.

Clouds of glory

Helminthdale Library Service is not unaffected by the Icelandic volcano. Half a dozen of the staff who should be in this week are stuck in various parts of the Mediterranean. As this is an Act Of God there is every likelihood that the time spent trying to get back will be taking off their annual leave. Arguments that the council has a long-standing commitment to mobile working were dismissed out of hand.

All this makes life interesting in our libraries. We struggle to keep the doors open at the best of times; between the people who are leave this week and the people who were on leave last week and are marooned in a foreign land we're pretty much stretched too thin for words. The only question is: will the breaking point be somebody going off sick with food poisoning or will it be somebody being taken off the front line to go and staff something or other that Policy Team has cooked up at a moment's notice with no thought whatsoever?

Huge amounts of territory dedicated to doing nothing

Frog's turn to be pissed off about holiday interruptions. He can't have a long weekend because he's needed to provide lunchtime cover upstairs in the Lending Library on Saturday so that Lola can go over and provide lunchtime cover at Catty Library.

Catty Library is closed at lunchtime.

Wilting like a geordie watching Shakespeare

Posy is seething. She's been on holiday this week. On Monday she got a 'phone call, while she was on the beach in a far away place, telling her that she needs to cover the enquiry desk at Milkbeck Library this afternoon.

"It wouldn't have killed them to have waited until I came in this morning."

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.)

I knew that when she wasn't busy being an international terrorist she had a sense of humour

Teachers. There, I've said it. Some of my best friends are teachers. But some teachers need a hard dose of reality, possibly because they've only ever gone to school, gone to college, gone back to school and not even been allowed to write their own letters to parents.

Last week, one of the teachers at St. Ignatius Lilo Primary School arranged for her class to visit Epiphany Library. This is routine stuff, we do it all the time. We're a library service. We encourage classes of schoolchildren. We let them borrow books. We suggest books and stories suitable for the children. We suggest books and stories suitable for the teachers and the classroom helpers. Wherever and whenever possible we try to provide a bit of value-added with a bit of a story time or some reading games. Which is why the teacher wanted to come to the library: she'd already been a few times and it had been a good thing.

Unfortunately, she wouldn't be able to come to the library herself this time but a colleague would be doing the honours.

Doubly-unfortunately we've got a few people off sick, a few on maternity leave and a few vacancies that haven't been filled, so we're struggling for staff to keep the doors open. It became horribly apparent yesterday that the staff at Epiphany Library would "only" be able to welcome the class, show them around and help them borrow as many books as they liked but that she wouldn't be able to do a story time as she'd be having to deal with the other customers as well (she's also having to do the caretaking duties but that's another can of worms). So Posy rang the school to explain the situation and to stress that while we were very happy to see them we could only give them the key deliverables. The teacher seemed OK with that and all was well.

The kids came in, were welcomed, were shown round, etc. And all went swimmingly until the final moment of the visit when the accompanying teacher turned to the Library Assistant and, instead of saying "thank you," said:

"You should have spent all your time with us instead of standing round at the counter answering 'phone calls. It's very unprofessional."

By and large we have extremely professional (small and important "p") front-line staff. Far too professional for one of them to point out that a well-paid role model's dissing someone on half her salary in front of a class of impressionable young five-year-olds isn't exactly the acme of professionalism.

Nothing much

We're a bit thin on warm bodies here today, it's like The Mary Celeste on a slack weekday and it's not a whole lot better topside. Come lunchtime there's just me and Maudie.

"Are you OK for me going and getting some lunch?" I ask her.

"Oh, bollocks to it. If the 'phones don't get answered they don't get answered and hard cheese. If they were that fussed they'd do something about it."

The time for gentility seems to have passed.

They're just about managing to provide enough lunchtime cover upstairs to keep the doors open by the creative use of odd bits of time owing and staff being willing to be rather a lot more flexible than the Library Service generally manages in recompense.

If we get any incidences of swine flu, morning sickness or lottery winnings we'll be completely screwed.

I'd bet a quarter of the public libraries across the country could say similarly and we've not even had the "savage public spending cuts" yet...

As much existence as the City Griffin

We're a bit thin on the ground today. As per bloody usual. Today's additional strains have been caused by a pile of people getting man flu and a couple of snow casualties (a break and a sprain). We'll soldier on, like we always do.

Like we've any other option: we daren't close the doors anywhere and we've done a damned fine job of demonstrating that even if we had more staff we'd not do anything productive with them.

Years have rolled on

There is a seasonal element in play here. There is a staffing crisis at Dutch Bend. Catty Library is closed but there are staff in there unpacking boxes ready for an unspecified opening day which is almost certainly going to be postponed because all the putty's fallen out of one of the new windows. You or I, being unthinking amateurs in the ways of the public library, would send one of the staff from Catty to Dutch Bend. Especially if we were Julia, who is both on site at Catty and responsible for both libraries.

Unfortunately for Frog, he's the one who's picked up the message and relayed it to Julia. Who tells him to ring personnel for the 'phone numbers of any staff who may not be working today so that he can ring round for cover.

Mary rescued him in the end: Lippy's going to work extra hours and do the necessary.

Seeing a troubled vet

Frog's turn again to be senior chief in the Library Service. At twenty-five past five he gets a 'phone call from Kelsey at Spadespit Library.

"Could I have tomorrow morning off?"

It's five minutes before end of play and Frog's trying to get Helminthdale Lending sorted, cash disposed off and then himself ready for tomorrow morning's children's holiday event at Umpty. Quite sensibly, he doesn't feel inclined to dig out tomorrow's rota, check out the availability of cover and then ring round to try and catch somebody who could go out first thing.

"Is it an emergency?"

"No. I was just thinking it would be nice to have the morning off."

Luckily, Kelsey's a fairly laid-back sort and doesn't take it amiss when the answer's no.

Teamwork

Frog asks Mary a question:

"Who's doing the cashing up in Lending this afternoon? Bronwyn went up and did it this morning before she went out to the storytime at Senebene and she doesn't want to have to hang on to end of play today. I could do it, I suppose, but I'm trying to get my flexi-time down to single figures."

"Well it isn't my job," says Mary, "and I'm trying to get my own hours down, too... I suppose I'll have to do it."

Mary, Frog and Bronwyn are all entirely justified in being pissed off about this. Bronwyn the more so because she also had to go up and sort out today's rota for this half of the Borough before she went out.

Oh, and in between covering events at Raccoonville and Grimley libraries, Frog's spending lunchtime covering the enquiry desk.

There are three layers of operational management upstairs in Lending:

• The Counter Supervisor vacancy created when Maybelle got her new job;
• Two and a half Assistant Librarians, including the vacancy created when Bronwyn got her new job and the one caused by Lola's maternity leave; and
• The Group Librarian, Doreen.

Salome, the sole remaining Assistant Librarian for this half of the Borough, doesn't work today and nothing's been done by Doreen to make sure that there are enough bodies to keep the doors open and that they have change for the till, which moneys will be put away safely at the end of the day.

Somewhere upon Elysian swards

Thelma's been allowed out for the day to start getting some of the stuff unpacked at Epiphany Library. The only reason she's been allowed out is that somebody needs to let the network guys into the building. She's been told that there's no chance of her and Epiphany's Library Assistant getting out again this week.

This is library project management at its best: the library's finally handed over, two months late, and the library's staff aren't allowed to ready it for opening because they've got to provide cover at Helminthdale Central. Any other place, the question would be: can we free up some staff to provide an extra hand or two in getting things sorted? Apparently it doesn't occur to anybody to wonder how Helminthdale Central would be keeping its doors open if Epiphany wasn't closed for building work. Or, indeed, how anywhere would be open if the central library at Catty wasn't also closed fo repairs. So much for all the loose talk we had at the beginning of the summer about taking steps to free up staff for service development projects.

But for an hour to watch them play,Those heroes dead and gone

Over the past week I've visited every library in the Borough with Milton. We're scoping out a couple of fairly big projects which I'm not looking forward to but should do a lot of good. It's been depressing but instructive.

The good news is that we still have very committed staff out there in the branch libraries. Absolutely shattered, but committed. Only one branch library was less busy than the main libraries, and we arrived there at the end of a very long day. Kids were drawing, reading, writing, talking, making things and having their faces painted. Grown-ups were reading, writing, talking, using the computers, helping the kids, helping the staff. And the staff were running round like blue-arsed flies making sure that everyone was being looked after and trying to provide as good a service as you can when you're out-numbered by customers twenty-to-one.

Which makes me wonder how on earth we would have coped had we not a main library and a full-time branch library closed for building works.

One of the Branch Managers mentioned, in passing, that this summer's holiday activities are a bit on the thin side. I pointed out that there are good reasons for this:

• Frog's working alone, with the same budget as in 1993 when six people were involved in the planning and delivery of the summer holiday programme.
• There weren't any planning meetings this year because Julia didn't see why two of the Assitant Librarians from her side of the borough were involved but none from Doreen's side of the borough. Julia has five Assistant Librarians. Doreen has one Assistant Librarian, another on Maternity, a vacancy and a vacant post that has been axed to save a bit of money.
• When Frog asked Doreen and Julia to make sure that staff would be available to support activities. He was told: "don't assume that staff will be available."
• Mary's signed us up to six or seven Reading Agency programmes (we're not sure which, they're a blur) which involve our getting something like eleven thousand books for kids all at once, to be distributed in set ways in set blocks and with stickies and stuff.
• And since T.Aldous and Mary let the funding for the BookStart project manager lapse all the administration and distribution work of getting umpteen hundred BookStart Treasure Boxes out to the deserving public has gone his way. But there's no administrative work involved in BookStart, oh no...
• And then there's the project T.Aldous accidentally signed us up for to encourage young men to read books...
• And Sheep City's summer holiday events brochure includes Frog's doing a day-long poetry workshop, which came as a shock because they forgot to ask him to do it.

Cattermole Street Library came as a hell of a shock.

Normally it looks the very picture of a cheerful disorganisation of activity. The other day it looked like a place under siege. Everything: trollies full of returned books, dump bins, boxes of new stock, craft materials for kids and Team Read materiel, was pulled together at the counter like a motte-and-bailey castle. The end of a long day of holiday activities, reading groups and workaday stuff in a busy, single-staffed library. Lily, the Branch Manager, gamely waves a white hankie and asks for fainites.

Milton's almost as shocked as me and resolves to have a quiet word with somebody about giving Lily a hand some time.

He'll probably be told "not to assume that staff are available."

Chain reaction

Frog can't make the meeting that Mary requires him to cover because he's supposed to be going to another meeting that Policy Team require him to go to. Except that he can't go to either because he's got to go and cover the children's event at Umpty so that somebody else can go to the latter meeting. Except that that meeting's now cancelled, but Frog still has to go out and provide the cover.

Just to cheer him up I show him a posting on the public libraries discussion list detailing a not-all-that-big-really library authority's children's library team structure, including the Early Years Librarian, the Teen Librarian and more. His response was rich and Anglo-Saxon.