Let the devil take the park attendant first

High dudgeon at Gypsy Cream Library where local fusspot Mrs. Nattercan is raising Cain because Pansy Potter's moved the 10-year-old copies of The Bookseller off the Reference shelf.

"I wouldn't mind: I've left the past six editions on the shelf and displayed them face on so that everyone could see that they're there. It looked horrible: ten years' worth of Booksellers spine-on in the middle of the library, neither use nor ornament."

"Did anyone use them?"

"No. I checked with the assistants who've been covering here for the past three years [the branch librarian retired last summer after being off sick for two years after doing her leg in after an accident] and they've never seen anyone use them. I've even put string along the top of the magazines to see if it's been disturbed by the end of the day. Zilch."

"Does Mrs. Nattercan read it?"

"No. She just doesn't like me changing the library."

"Can I make a suggestion: rather than having an constant sniping war with Mrs. Nattercan every time to make small changes why not review everything that you want to do and then blitz the place and make big changes. That way you're not constantly battling with your more conservative customers and make a bigger impact."

"I'll have to think about it. If I do big changes then you-know-who will stick his oar in."

Sigh...

Night and day? You are the one.

A colleague in a media library sends me this. It's quite a lot like sending Coles to Newcastle.

It's a crap job, in a crap place
All the work is boring it's a disgrace
It's no rat race, I'll be a mental case,
That it's all shite to me.

It's a crap chair, in the wrong style
So I bought my own chair, it was worthwhile
Feel I'm on trial, and I'm so versatile
But it's all shite to me

I can't say how happy I was to come here
I can't say, because it's not true
There's this stuff I'm trying so hard to forget
Wouldn't you like to forget something too?

It's the wrong sound with the wrong scripts
Though your clips are tempting, they're the wrong clips
Find the right clips, better get to grips
But the day ends, I'm free
Dear, it's all shite
It's all shite to me.

Pavement oysters

We're coming up to T.Aldous' 60th birthday with the vexed question as to whether or not to have a collection for a card and a present coloured further by his announcement that he's not retiring this year after all.

A cricket-loving colleague supplies an answer: Bill Frindle, the chap who does the scoring for Test Match Special on the radio, celebrated his 40th year in the job. His colleagues bought him a card but there was a slip-up and somebody got one with the message: "Sorry you're leaving." Perhaps we could do similar.

"If we give him a "sorry you're leaving card" every birthday he might take the hint by the time he's 65!"

Is that cannon fire or is it my heart pounding?

We've had wind of comments in one of last year's inspection reports:

"Prioritisation and decision-making are either non-existent or based on crisis management. "

Next week: the toilet habits of bears and the bouyancy of ducks.

Icky the bare bum firewall bobby

The council's email server is playing silly buggers again. No, scrub that: it's behaving exactly as you'd expect anything to do with Helminthdale to behave. None of us have been able to receive any emails from discussion lists for about six weeks. In the mean time, we're receiving dozens of spam emails for larger body parts; genuine imitation Rolexes at imitation genuine prices; gentlemen's pharmaceuticals; and weekly global updates from the Chief Executive.

It isn't just us affected: none of the planning appeals are getting through the spam filter because the form includes the word "erection."

Today we appear to have hit a crisis: everyone's email account seems to have gone AWOL: if you click on Outlook on your PC you get access to a pile of spam but none of your emails. A treat.

Belshazzar's snatched cheese butty

Frog's received the first parcel of Reading Mission goodies for the summer holiday Reading Challenge. He's especialy pleased to get to play with the secret message pens (the writing is invisble until you rub it with the other end of the pen). The sensible grown-ups amongst us wonder if the ink in the pens will last out to the end of term.

"I'll be able to write rude things on the walls," says Frog.

"I think the writing's been on the walls here for a while now," replies Noreen.

Keep a twinkle in your eye

One of the consequences of T.Aldous' 'phone having been listed as the number for telephone renewals in the Phone Book of 1997 is that he has an excuse to have his 'phone permanently put through to his Secretary. Which means that everyone else has to take his calls because Tilly Floss, his Secretary, is never at her desk. Two of today's examples will illustrate this..


The Acquisitions team, still at half-strength, still desperately trying to catch up with the backlog of work created by their prodigious bit of end-of-year sensation, constantly being boggled by the ever-more nebulous answers to questions about their goals and work plans, also cop for most of the telephone receptionist work. During a particularly fraught hour, Noreen happened to pass the caretaker's room and there was Tilly, making notes in the community room booking diary.

"Couldn't you do that at your own desk?"

"No, it gets too busy to work there."

"How do you know?"

A bit later, Tilly's phone rings again. "Could somebody answer that for me please?" she shouts from the one and only desk on the whole floor that doesn't have a telephone. Altough there are eight other desks she could use for whatever it is she's doing, this particular desk is the one that does it best.


Earlier this year I had to complete a scoping document to see if any of our customer-facing staff should be moved to the new corporate call centre. It seems I successfully argued against any of our front-line staff's getting co-opted. I conveniently forgot Tilly's post in this review; I begin to wonder if that was a mistake.

What news of the Rialto?

The Greys are in control in Helminthdale in that they've got exactly the same number of seats as the previously-ruling Black/White coalition and as the Greys caused this year's budget crisis by vetoing last year's savings the coalition voted to pretend to be divided so that the Greys got lumbered with sorting out the mess. The new regime's immediate response is to have the budget review that they vetoed last year and to impose a jobs freeze. How this might or might not affect posts currently being advertised, including some of our more mature vacancies, who knows. As there's a jobs freeze every May and June in Helminthdale we're really not too fussed but it might provide yet another excuse for not getting on with the recruitment, whether or not the freeze has any effect.

Ruby lips and eyes of pink

If you're managing a service or a process it always helps if you have some sort of grasp of the concept of cause and effect. In no particular order...

• We don't have anybody available to deal with donated items as both the cataloguing and stock management posts are vacant.


• Policy is still to accept donations as to do other might upset customers. Policy is that items may be put into stock if deemed suitable or else will be put into the booksale.


• With libraries being closed for refurbishment or being emptied prior to moving to new premises there is no storage space anywhere in the borough.


• With the huge backlog of unclassified non-fiction and boxes of stock for the attention of the non-existant stock manager there's no room at headquarters.


• We need to withdraw about 60,000 items from stock to meet the public library standards in 2006/7, though T.Aldous is going around branches telling staff that they can't do any stock editing as it should be done by the non-existant stock manager.


• A hard core of about twenty boxes of books have been in every booksale in libraries across the borough in the past three years.


• Somebody who will remain nameless ordered a pile of furniture to spend up last year's budget and still hasn't decided where any of it's going.

A few members of staff have asked if we could stop taking donations for now so as not to add to the pile. Management group might discuss the idea if they get the time, if they get round to meeting, but until then it's business as usual.

"We'll have to do something about all these boxes that are cluttering up the libraries, they look a right mess. What would somebody think if they saw it all?"

asks our fearless leader.

Drunk as penguins

There's always someone worse off than yourself:

"It seemed pretty straightforward in theory, get each service point to run off a report and get them to act upon it. That was almost three years ago. Maybe it was naïve to set out instructions on a piece of paper, forward, demonstrate procedure to those in charge of the various areas, and expect thing to work.

"What do you mean you haven’t started doing the reports yet?"

"I asked on discovering one branch had far more than its far share of stock transiting in and out, being traced or claiming return.

"Well we haven’t had chance to read the procedure yet. We’ve been quite busy."

"It’s over two years since the procedure was sent out, what do you mean you haven’t had chance to read it yet?"

"Well when we get procedures we file them in a box until someone rings us and tells us we are starting to operate them."

"So you don’t use the neat yellow folder provided with a big label saying ‘Staff Manual’?"

"Yes. Once we have been rung and told the procedure has started we file things in there then."

"So how many procedures have you got in your Staff Manual?"

"Three, I think. The box we put them in while they are waiting is quite full though."

Naturally this prompted tirades in direction of appropriate Group Librarian.

"Do you know what those plonkers are doing?"

"I rarely know what they are doing, they have a unique method for everything. I tried to sort them out when I started this job, but have basically given up. They just do what they want anyway. I once did a stock exchange, or tried to, they unpacked the boxes and re-shelved the books before they left the branch. When we were on a manual system they decided one year they weren’t going to put up the fines. They even put a sign in the window saying ‘Cheapest Fines in the District’. So if you think you have a hope of getting them to run a report every now and again, well think again."

Further details on enquiry sent under plain wrapper

I've been asked why I spent a week at the beginning of April knocking myself out to get stock and circulation statistics for CIPFA when staff have been used to doing manual shelf counts for years. Well...

A colleague in another authority once referred to a branch under his charge as a "rogue" branch. Suggestion was that everything that went wrong in the world, or anything happening without logical explanation, could be traced back to this single epicentre of the bizarre. It didn’t matter that a problem apparently resided elsewhere, after a few phone calls the true source could be discovered in this one location, this one insoluble problem. The real world, he claimed, ceased to be as the threshold of this particular building was crossed, and no matter how many times he explained a procedure it was always followed by strange conversations.

"Does this new procedure start next week or now?"

"This new procedure started fifteen years ago everywhere else."

"Oh well, I’m not sure we have the right stationary, the van hasn’t been yet this week has it?"

Worse still every instruction was followed by a question as to whether a red pen or blue pen was required for the task.

For a while this notion was lost in the mists of my mind, until I came to the conclusion that if a couple of my branches just happened to be Anne Robinsoned off as weakest links, I would have about fifty percent less of the proverbial fire fighting to do. This I considered to be more than my share of the rogue branch syndrome.

For example, a simple system report detailing which branches were most proficient at sending items into permanent transit, that is they either left or arrived at location months ago yet still carried the transit status, would highlight a disproportionate percentage at branch X.

Alternatively take an overview of the items with a "cannot trace for reservation" status and even the most myopic individual couldn’t fail to note that branch Y was doing something peculiar when 58 items were so set on the same day.

Of course explanation for these happenstances there is none as "we didn’t do anything, I’m not sure we know how to change the item status".

And then along came CIPFA. Now we all know that those who decide what form CIPFA returns take have a few beers, get drunk, take a few risks with exotic fungi and then decide what they are going to introduce as subtly different this year. A challenge they would probably call it, a bloody pain I would say. Previously well thought out solutions to the enigmas of times past become redundant. Add to this the non-obvious changes they make, the ones they hope we won’t notice until all forms have been completed, at which point it is blatantly clear figures don’t balance and you have to go back to the beginning. The cocktail formed by Mr. CIPFA and Mrs. Rogue-Branch produces son Molotov.

So come early March last year a carefully worded memo to all branches outlining the necessary procedures winged it’s way towards the unexpectant, prompting the inevitable from Rogue Branches.

"Do I have to count the books on loan?"

"Have you any idea how you are going to get the stats off the system to do that?"

"No."

"Well in that case how did you expect to count the items on loan?"

"I was going to use last years figures and alter them a bit."

"So we’ve paid a third of a million quid for a system which can count these totals and you want to make the figures up?"

"No one has complained before. And what do I do with the form once I have completed it? Oh and does it matter if I fill in the bits you have asked for with a red pen, or should I use blue?"

The result of this is that you discover the figures for rogue branch do not in any way match those of the last fully manual count, and you then spend ages trying to find reasons why within the system. Mind you, if they have been making up figures for the last twenty odd years is it any wonder there is no conformity between the two? And for reasons I will never understand it is Systems Librarian who has to explain why the system isn’t producing accurate data!

Rogue branch then have to cover themselves and find any excuse to knock the system which has mysteriously taken 2,000 books off their shelves, "and heaven knows what it has done to our issue total". This last because suddenly what was once a seemingly thriving centre of activity, with apparent staff shortages, becomes a much over-staffed establishment because someone else is creating more accurate measurements of performance than the previous imaginary.

You were asking...?

When Yuba played the Rumba on the tuba down in Cuba

I think I may have opened the floodgates last week:

Issuing A Book
(Country and Western, arr. Grainger (not))

I'm issuing a book,
Issuing a book.
My barcode reader's busted
And my date stamp's run amuck.
It's going to be half seven before everybody's gone
And I'm issuing a book
With my high heels on.

There's only me on here today.
You're the thirtieth person I've heard say:
"Hello dearie, where is everyone?"
Two of us retired last year;
One girl's off, she's feeling queer;
If I were allowed leave then there'd be none.
I came in at the crack of dawn
To put the new stock out so that
Customers could come and help themselves.
But, alas, it's plain to see
That the bestsellers from TV
Are resolutely sticking to the shelves.

I'm issuing a book,
Issuing a book.
A borrower wants Kafka but
I think he's out of luck.
Our closest is Jean Plaidy
Or Henry Williamson.
And I'm issuing a book
With my high heels on.

Not in Kansas any more, Toto

A member of staff who will go nameless (so long as the agreed amount arrives in my secret Swiss bank account) was observed clicking her heels together and muttering in the staff room. After a couple of minutes of this she gave up and sat down at the table, a picture of dejection.

"It worked in 'The Wizard of Oz'," she said.

There were consoling murmurs from her colleagues. Suddenly one piped up:

"Perhaps it's like Tinkerbell in Peter Pan. Perhaps we all have to believe in it for it to work."

Which is why half a dozen members of staff could be found sitting around the table with their eyes closed, fingers crossed and heels clicking merrily together as they chanted

"There's no place like home."

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings and right down the back of your suit

Uh-ho Chungo! June is Surestart Month. I hope we survive it unscathed. This is the month where the costs and benefits of Surestart are both magnified to the max. We have been doing some wonderful things with Surestart projects and funding and it shows both in the statistics and in the faces of the kids in the photographs. The down side is that it is so narrowly focused geographically as well as topically. What happens is that lots and lots of things for pre-school children and their parents/carers are happening in three of our libraries -- often crowding out activities for other parts of the library community at those libraries -- and bugger all gets done anywhere else save weekly-ish under-fives' story times at half a dozen places when we can manage it. And of course the Surestart project workers can forget that they're not the only game in town and their high priorities aren't always ours, which leads to occasional tensions. (Of course, that last is always true of any specialist service: I've sometimes had to point out to our people that it's no good shouting at the IT department when we're panicking about a forthcoming inspection if they've got other departments panicking about Ofsted and the Social Services Inspectorate at the same time.)

During Surestart month the gulf grows deeper, with so many things going on at one library in particular that the staff there feel like unwanted lodgers. I can only sympathise and put a superhuman amount of effort into not winding staff up any further (which would be the work of a moment as in an earlier life I lived and worked with social workers manquées and find them a couple of orders of magnitude more irritating than professional librarians -- it's amazing how often it's the people in "caring professions" who are happiest to plough their own furrows regardless of other people's feelings).

With a bit of luck all will be well and nobody will get silly or prima-donna-ish and the libraries and their customers will reap the undoubted benefits of Surestart activities without alienating anybody in the process. I know Frog's spent the past few weeks going out of his way to smooth ruffled karmas in the hopes of calming everyone down before the programme starts. Fingers crossed he's succeeded!

You're sick while you're dancing

Poor old Frog's back from holiday, the highlight of which was a bout of bronchitis. "How are you feeling, old man?" I asked.

"I could do with a relapse,"

he said as cheerfully as any man could who'd come back in to work to find that he's got until 4.30pm to create and finalise an entire summer holiday activity programme from scratch.

As slippery as a well-buttered ice rink

I don't believe this exchange and I was a party to it:

T.Aldous:

"When will we be getting the other online reference databases?"

Me:

"When will you be telling me whether we've enough money to buy them?"

Ping-pong:

"Which will we be buying?"

"It depends on how much money there is to spend."

"No, that really won't do. I need more information than that."

"I have provided a list of the databases I think we should buy if we had £10k, £15k, £20k or £25k. And I included all the details of what jobs they did, how much they cost, the licensing regimes and contacts for ordering, etc. Could we work from that?"

"Can you get me more details?"

Enterprises of great pith

Dagmar Braithwaite again. Obviously not as busy as she would like us to believe.

"What's the point of only transferring small numbers of books? I thought we were going to be transferring all the stock around. Mind you, I don't want any rubbish from Dutch Bend. Any time they send me any of their books I always make sure to send them the same number of my books, otherwise I won't be able to fit everything onto the shelves."

I now have enough experience of the inanities of our stock editing processes and procedures not to suggest that she get shut of some of the old stock on her shelves. I limit myself to the following:

• We only got the system this week


• There's only one of me


• Mary and I are planning on building a wholesale rotation of large-print books a.s.a.p.

Not good enough.

"Well, I don't see the point," says Dagmar.

No. Probably not.

Junk mail addressed to the dead

To my utter surprise, a stock rotation add-on to the library management system is signed, sealed and delivered despite Arthur Sixpence having put the funding for it up as a saving on 2005/6 (he was probably so busy shilly-shallying about it that he missed the deadline and the funding was brought forward by default). So I'm having a play to establish the mechanisms and sketch out some procedures. This involves fifty popular science books from one of the travelling collections which has been sitting in a box by the clock machine since September waiting to be moved on by the non-existant Stock Librarian. I split it up into ten piles of five and allocate each pile to one of the branch libraries in the system and send them on their way, with a note saying: "please put these in non-fiction; they're being used to trial automated stock rotation. I'll be writing some notes soon, once I have you'll get a copy."

'Phone call from Dagmar Braithwaite at Doggedly Library:

"What's the point of sending me all these [five!!!] science books? They'll never go out here. Science books never go out here."

"You've got no science books. Could that be the reason?"

"We've not got any because they'll never go out."

I try to explain as diplomatically as I can that even if these books don't go out they're different enough to make it obvious that fresh stock's coming into the library and it might cater for unvoiced needs within her borrowers.

"It's always useful to test the market," I say.

I don't say: "I'm not your librarian so you can't bully me into only providing you with family sagas, true crime and cookery books for your old ladies." And I didn't point out that the analysis I did when I was number-crunching for CIPFA demonstrated that 55% of the library's issues were to ladies over the age of 60. Instead, I appeal to her sporting instinct and there's now a fiver riding on whether or not we get three issues out of those five books in the next three months.

An expert on trills and rolls

My comments about library closures, or not, prompts a colleague to send me the following ditty.

(after Randy Scouse Git, apologies to Dolenz)

It's an interesting library
And it's mine, all mine,
With my 1950's bookstock
And my issues in decline.
I've a deal and chipboard counter
That we bought for one-and-three
And some dodgy old electrics that blow
When I make my tea.

They tried to close this library once
When Attlee was PM.
Some folks came in to use it
But they never came again.
We thought we'd put computers in
To try and drum up trade.
The public came in sparsely,
Oh, but such demands they made:

"I know all this is free.
"Why isn't it made for me?
"When I change all the settings
"Why can't you just leave it be?"

Now we've loaded all the plug-ins
And we've locked it all down tight.
A clever bit of scripting
Cleans the cache out every night.
The daily filter updates
Try to lock out the porn.
And the man with twitchy eyebrows
Gives us ire and fire and scorn:

"How dare you censor me!
"I'll choose what I will see!
"Folk died in two world wars for my
"Online obscenity!"

"I know this is all free.
"Why isn't it set for me?
"What care I who else uses it?
"Why can't you leave it be?
"How dare you censor me! "
"I'll see what I will see!
"I've put nudes on the desktop
"'Cos that's what I like to see.
"It's public, so it's free
"And this stuff belongs to me.
"I'm changing all the settings
"And you'll damn well let it be!

(It's an interesting library
And it's mine, all mine.
With my 1950's bookstock
And my issues in decline
They tried to close this library down once
When Attlee was PM
Some folks came in to use it
But they never came again.)

The donkey's pissed on the strawberries

Grrrr...

I've just found out why my attempts to publicise the web catalogue have been spiked... T.Aldous told Marketing to hold fire and neither could be bothered to inform me that this had been done. I only know now by piecing together chance remarks from three different people. Like a fool I go and ask himself what's going on.

"We can't publicise the web catalogue at the moment because people can't reserve books on the PAC at Catty and I don't want to provoke any complaints."

I wouldn't mind hitting an occasional brick wall: this constant spiralling into bewildering mists does my head in.

I'll be OK if I ever have to entertain wasps

To prevent thefts we've put most of our public PCs into chunky metal safes. Two unprotected PCs' going walkies from Senebene Library the other week illustrates the need. This is not without its problems, especially when the time comes to try and sort out a problem with the hardware. There is a definite knack to getting the safes open and virtually all the front-line staff have agreed that I'm the only person on the books what has it. Which is usually fine, if inconvenient, though it makes a splendid excuse for getting out of the office when nerves are particularly frayed. Today it isn't fine as I seem to have lost the knack at Noddy, neatly snapping the key in the lock at the first turn. There was only me and the PC guy there so I can't even blame the staff for distracting me. Luckily the bloke who makes the safes was very understanding and only took the piss a little bit.

No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in

The dust's finally settled after the elections and the upshot is that nobody's actually in charge so everybody's going to work together. This has been the official result of every local election for the past couple of decades, which means that every election ends in confusion because nobody can guess which way the mavericks are going to jump and leads to confusion as the new "everybody working together" dismantles the workings of the last "everybody working together" to make sure it makes its stamp on the scheme of things.

A particular issue this time has been "saving libraries," which translates as "no library closures unless expedient and in someone else's ward" but doesn't translate into any of the additional resources necessary to bring all our buildings up to a habitable standard, let alone staffing, etc. Which has also been the result of elections for the past couple of decades...

Waits and measures

Mary's been told to come up with stock procurement costs so she's going about it in our usual way: including as much as possible that could make us under-perform in an over-zealous effort not to look as if we're fiddling the figures. So far the costs include:

• Acquisitions staff salaries, including those of the two posts that have been vacant for more than a year-and-a-half; and Jimmy Huddersfield's post which has been vacant for eight months;


• The cost of the furniture and equipment;


• The maintenance costs of the ordering software;


• Stationery costs;


• The cost of having librarians and other staff choosing books for stock.

So far so justifiable. The point at which I departed from the exercise was when she had Seth measuring the floor space used by the section. Why? So that she could work out how much of the service charge we pay the shopping centre to include in the costs: if it's x% of the library's floor area then it's x% of the service charge.

"Why not include a proportion of the Chief Executive's salary?" I asked.

There was some quibbling as to whether or not to include the floor area used by the half of the double-sided bookshelves holding the donations that need to be looked at by the non-existant Stock Librarian. The crowning glory came when she instructed Seth to measure half of the office I used to share with Jimmy. This involved him stretching a tape measure across the office umpteen times until Mary was finally convinced that they were measuring the correct area.

"In what way has this office been involved in stock procurement since Jimmy's retirement?" I asked.

By this stage I was getting truculent:

"You'll need to subtract half of the pathway through the section that I use for egress from my office," I pointed out.

"We don't need that sort of detail," replied Mary.

How many pies can a porpoise poise on purpose?

This was floated by me at close of play tonight...

Kevin,
I've been checking up on the targets for this autumn's satisfaction survey. T.Aldous has committed us to:

Found the book they wanted: 94%
Found the information they wanted: 93%
General satisfaction: 95%

Is this achievable?
Jim

I looked around at all the books that hadn't been catalogued yet because Jimmy Huddersfield went and retired after only giving three months' formal notice. And all the books in boxes waiting to be transferred to other libraries by the non-existant Stock Librarian. And the chaotic state of Helminthdale Central where the priority has had to be "try and keep the doors open with the staff left after taking into account vacancies; sickness due to stress; and covering vacant posts at branches." Then I think of the depth and range of the in-house staff training on enquiry and information work and the library assistants dumped on the reference library desk at a moment's notice to make up numbers. I do a quick Google search and have a look at the actual figures achieved by a dozen library authorities, including some that we're always told are red hot good. They average out:

Found the book they wanted: 77%
Found the information they wanted: 75%
General satisfaction: 94%

Do I think it's achievable? What do you think, chums?

One golden spoon of ten shekels

Last week, Daisy Duck asked T.Aldous if it was OK to buy some new teaspoons for the staff room out of petty cash.

"I've a better idea," said T.Aldous, "I can buy some from Connor's Hardware. They'll be cheaper and they have nice gilt edges."

This morning a small package arrived at Dutch Bend. Daisy opened the package: there were ten new cheap teaspoons. With nice gilt edges.

And a memorandum:

MEMORANDUM

From: Chief Librarian
To: Daisy Duck, Dutch Bend Library
Date: 10th May 2006
Subject: Teaspoons

---

Daisy,

These are the teaspoons I promised.

Please make sure that they are put on the library inventory.

T.Aldous

Sproink

Three times in the past fortnight Gypsy Cream Library's telephone has been out of order. Three times BT have come along and strung a new line between the library and the telegraph pole at the corner of the road. This time we get a solution to the mystery...

"Oi! What do you think you're doing?"

shouts a workman from the building site next door (they're putting up some neo-Georgian executive dovecotes)

"I've just cut that down!"

It turns out that the telephone line was in the way of one of their gantry trucks so they cut it down ad lib. Needless to say, the bills for the reconnection fees will be going to the builders, though we suspect that they are only subject to law west of the Pecos.

Ouch!

Advice to gentlemen readers of this blog: if you ever give a lady a willy made of seaside rock, don't hang around to watch her having a go at it with a toffee hammer!

The veneer's peeling off my dressing table

Reality bites... Day five of the "trying to get the OK to buy British Standards Online" game. None of us in the Library Service are allowed to sign licence agreements. I ring one of the most helpful people I know, who tries his best:

"As far as I know, Fiery Jack's the only person in the authority who's allowed to sign licence agreements. If you send it to him he'll deal with it... oh dear... it occurs to me that there's a complication. It might have to go to the IT Partnership [outsourced as of last month], someone spent a lot of last year transferring licences from the authority to the partnership. I'm afraid you're going to have to talk to them. I'm really sorry."

My heart sinks. I have a nasty feeling that this may end up involving Arthur Sixpence, in which case I'll need to buy a sleeping bag and an elephant gun.

Just like any other man except more so

Me and Frog have a day out in Blackpool for a meeting.

"It's alright for some!"

said the Library Assistants, so we promised to pick up some rock for them. A couple of blocks back from the library we were visiting we spotted a rock shop and popped in. Amidst all the usual suspects -- giant humbugs; rock dummies; and those big red lollies with the cat's face on them -- they had some rock willies. Exactly the thing!

Actually, to call them rock willies is to understate the intimidating dimensions of the things. I spent a few moments looking for toes, or at least fingers. Anyway, we bought them to take back to the library. Only after we had parted with our money did we spot that purchases were placed into clear polythene carrier bags.

Still, we got a bit of space on the train back home.

A smile, a song and a boa constrictor

For some reason, whenever something odd happens people ask me or Frog if we're to blame. The latest example is somebody's reserving a copy of "Teach Yourself Tantric Sex" for Deidre at Senebene Library, who's not been well lately. I proferred my alibis, as usual, which weren't believed, as usual, and ditto Frog, as usual.

What's unusual here, for me at any rate, is that there is a book called "Teach Yourself Tantric Sex" and that we have two copies in stock (at Catty and Dutch Bend, the latter making a sort of sense). How the hell do you teach yourself tantric sex? I suspect this is one I don't want to think about lest it joins the ranks of three-in-the-morning mysteries.

Palpable proof of God's existence a posteriori

A colleague sends me a picture of the New Model Library Building planned by the council:

Tha can carry a duck up t'mountain but tha can't mek it quack

Talking to a colleague in IT support about our People's Network computers. He's perplexed:

"They're all the same model and make of PC. They've all got the same software on them. In fact, they're all copies of the same image, so they should all be identical clones. But they're not, are they?"

"No," I reply.

"I can't understand it. Anyway, I've taken the picture of the bloke in his vest off the desktop on PC1 again. And I've turned the sound down on 2 and 5 again. And I've put the Flash plug-in back onto 6 again. And when I'm logged on I haven't been able to replicate that thing on PC 10 where the Word document's in portrait orientation right up to the point where it gets printed: how the hell it does that I don't know, it only happens to some of your customers. We've been talking about this back at the office: what would you say to our blitzing the whole lot one evening?"

"Fire bombing's a bit extreme isn't it?"

"That's not what I meant but I'll take it back as an idea."

Like walking through Alaska in your underwear

I begin to understand why I want to shout at T.Aldous all the time. And, as usual, it makes distance to make things clear...

There's been a cock-up in the "Hooray for Literacy" campaign being run by the Young Persons Directorate. For some reason their publicity states that the library's doing a story time workshop next month despite the fact that nobody's asked the Library Service if it can be done. T.Aldous approaches Frog:

"Have you seen the Hooray for Literacy booklet?"

"No, has it come out yet?"

"It says that you're doing on story time workshop."

"Does it? First I know of it. When?"

"Have a look..."

"Well it won't be me doing it: it's not my Saturday and I'm on leave that week anyway."

"Nancy's got no right to do this without talking to you first. We can't not do this, we need somebody to do it."

"Well, I've got a meeting with..."

"Who can we ask to do it?"

"I've a meeting with..."

And so on for the next fifteen minutes, with T.Aldous rotating between "Nancy's got no right" and "who can we ask" with scarce a breath between. Until...

"I know! We could ask one of the SureStart workers to do it? Could they do it?"

"As I was saying, I've a meeting with them on Tuesday, I'll ask one of them to do it."

And there it is in a nutshell: when you hit a difficulty and need to sort it out urgently do you want to try and sort it out or do you want to listen to your boss going on and on and on about whose fault it is?

Your rosebuds are numbered

Being a bit paranoid about the people counters I was paying particular attention to the one in Pottersbury Road Library when I popped in this morning. I suppose it's just as well, but I'm not convinced. I was irritated, but not surprised, to see that the little red light didn't flash and the count didn't move when I walked past, nor when I wafted various body parts past the sensor.

"Looks like it's buggered."

I suggested with all the technical gravitas I could muster.

"Coo, look at that! Should it do that?" Says an elderly lady.

The numbers were spinning round like a fruit machine.

How many fingers am I holding up?

That's just Jim dandy that is: the people counters that have been installed in all our libraries have no moving parts, but we found last week that they can stick somehow (!!!) and three weeks' worth of stats for Noddy are lost forever; now we find that resetting the counter by pulling the plug isn't reliable either. T.Aldous discovers that giving the counter a vigorous shake and calling it "you sod" seems to do the trick.

"I didn't want to buy this model," he tells me.

For once I sympathise.

An old man going bonkers in the rain

I'm obviously in need of a holiday myself: it's taking me all my powers not to shout at T.Aldous and the strain is killing me. And in fairness, the man himself isn't being particularly irritating or stupid. If he pops his head through the door I want to shout at him. If he says hello I want to shout at him. If he says thank you for sorting a problem out I want to shout at him. I just can't cope with his "I can't do anything without the use of huge doses of adrenalin so the merest thing has to be A Major Problem that needs to be explained over and over again because It's Very Complicated" way of doing things. (Or not, as the case may be.)

Today we did hit a major problem caused by the very complicated procedures forced on us by the corporate support team's new Working Nimbly To Achieve Results Flexibly régime which means that none of us in the library service are allowed to actually buy anything that isn't a book and that we have to allow at least one week to get the OK to order anything and be glad about it. By the time T.Aldous had talked us both through to the inevitable impasse for the fourth time I was crawling the walls. As soon as he left the office I had to slink into the computer room, sit cross-legged on the floor and take lots of deep breaths to try and centre myself. I'm not sure that what I'm trying to do here is worth the pains in my chest.

I'll have to grit me teeth when he goes on about his hernia

Writing a blog is a phenomenally self-indulgent pastime. Unashamably so in this case. If I'm to tell the truth this blog's just a way for me to get as much bile as possible out of my system before this damned job has me cracking up again. So I'm writing this for myself.

Having said that, I'm curious to know who, if anyone, reads this and why. How believable is it? Honestly, although you won't find "Helminthdale" in the Municipal Yearbook the stories are true: 90% come from one library authority, about 9% from a nearby authority (must be something in the water) and the remainder are a hotch-potch of systems administrators' campfire stories that wary colleagues have consented to be published. I dearly wish that some of the other stories could be published somewhere, though. Perhaps when we've all been pensioned off.

In order to pander to this unaccustomed sociability on my part, just for this week I've switched the "comments" option on. I expect I'll come to regret it. (-:

The malady lingers on

The after effects of the acquisitions team's Stakhanovite labours are becoming horribly apparent: they both need holidays and as soon as possible. They're getting on each other's nerves -- not good in a team reduced to two people. Today's simmering irritation is the positioning of a fan, which involves more faffing about than you may imagine and ought to irritate me more than it does. Having achieved an optimum position, the tension racks up a little when Noreen gets back from lunch early to find Doris rearranging some of the furniture so that she "would get the benefit." Noreen, working on the basis that least said soonest mended, spends the rest of the day fuming.

The sooner they get a new line manager the better, though it may be some time yet as the post's only been vacant seven months and needs a while yet in which to mature. I don't know how people get on who fill posts promptly, it must be Hell.

Madame, you may have observed that in Casablanca human life is cheap

Seth collars me.

"I forgot to show you this before. Look: proof that the corridor was empty once!"

And there on his mobile 'phone is a picture of an empty corridor. I notice the date.

"Is that right? You've not set this up as a lark have you? It was never that clear then."

"It was, it was! Just for the one day, mind. I had to take a photo because when I rang my wife to tell her she didn't believe me either."

Any artiste mentioning football will be paid off

I've been out all day and, as Jimmy Huddersfield's successor (my designated deputy) doesn't exist yet Mary's had to field my 'phone calls. By all accounts she's had a torrid day of it. On top of her own job, which involves the wearing of way too many hats, and covering for my absence she's also been covering for Jimmy's post; T. Aldous (who's off sick) and Julia (on leave). By end of day she's frazzled and it's hard not to feel sorry for her. I can't help comparing and contrasting Mary and Julia, who's on the same pay scale. Whereas Mary's been knocking herself out to keep the show on the road, Julia's reliably reported as saying: "the rota for the week I'm on leave isn't my problem: I'm not responsible for what happens when I'm on leave."

Grunting and chunting, cantankerous

Seth and Lemuel are fuming quietly (oh, alright then, not all that quietly) about the state of the fire escape corridor. Up to the end of March it was chock full of boxes of incoming stock. For one heady day it was dead clear, then the boxes of incoming started to mount up after visit to the suppliers to get stock for the impending move at Noddy (don't mark your calendars just yet). Just as the acquisitions team started to get to grips with this there was a sudden influx of huge boxes, swamping all else before it.

"What are these?" I ask the lads.

"New shelving and display units," says Seth.

"Where are they for?" I ask before I can stop myself.

"They've not decided yet," replies Lemuel.

"If it's anything like last time, we'll be climbing over these right up to Wakes Week," says Seth.

"You'd think they'd know what they wanted 'em for before buying 'em," mutters Lemuel.

"You're joking," says Seth, "what about all them books in the corner? They've been for years and they've still not decided."

And so it went. A lot of the rest of the discussion wouldn't fit in with a family blog. In case of fire clamber over boxes in an orderly fashion.

Today I am two separate gorillas

One of the monitors on Senebene Library's counter died yesterday. I tried jerry-rigging a replacement, but that didn't work so the staff had to wait until maintenance came out with a replacement. Unfortunately, try as they would, they couldn't open the security cage of the PC so they couldn't plug in the new monitor. They tried every key in the place with no joy. I've just popped in, had a go myself and also failed. I wondered if the key had bent so I came back to pick up my copy of the key. Lo and behold, there was their key. I'd absent-mindedly stuck it in my pocket yesterday.

Readers will have already come to the conclusion that the systems guy is a prat; this will come as confirmation for them as need it.

In the path of the lovesick monkey

One of the longer-running soap operas is the saga of T.Aldous' telephone number. Back in 1997 it was erroneously listed in the Phone Book as the number for telephone renewals. It still is, which gives him the excuse not to pick up his own calls.

You or I would either:

• Make efforts to get the right number listed, not that difficult, says the man who, in a much earlier life, was once responsible for the council's entries in the Phone Book and Thomson's Local;

or

• Change your 'phone number.

Not him. Not a week goes by without one or more of us being told that we have to take his calls because his 'phone number's wrong in the Phone Book.

Let's call the whole thing off

Catty Library's been bellyaching about not having a PAC for ages. Every Catty Library staff meting results in me getting an ear-bending about the PAC. The guys from IT Support delivered, installed and set up the PC and spent about three days getting comfortable that it did what we needed, all the while with library staff hovering about asking them to hurry up. At last, last week, it was live. I popped in today to have a look at it.

Late morning and the damned thing hadn't been switched on yet.

In defence of reason

Renewed discussion on a new playbus for the borough. Frog attends the meeting. He reports that Councillor Oblong coruscates intellectually.

"I don't hold with playbuses. They have kids pissing in yoghurt pots."

That seemed to end the discussion for now.

On a sinking ship a seaman yearns

Yet more problems with the porcelain tuba, this time at Dutch Bend where the female library assistants are up in arms because male library assistants are using the staff toilet, which they insist should be ladies only (or at least, female). I have visions of the male staff having to go out of the library to pee in the kerbside grids and gutters. Come to think of it this might be an important means of preserving an important part of the local culture. You don't see many parents encouraging their children to pee in the grid these days. I well remember the father of one of my friends saying: "See if you can't pee on your shoes while you're at it, Tracey, let's see if we can't get some of that dog muck off the soles." Another part of the spirit of community that didn't survive the millennium. Sigh... Mind you, I expect the MLA to adopt this as a new performance indicator any day now.

Meanwhile at Bencup a fifty-two year old lady is picketing the library, signs and everything, in protest at having been banned from the reading group. I have no idea why she's banned: sometimes your instincts just scream to leave well alone.

We've got the staggers as well

The door to the admin. offices is hanging off its hinges. Actually, it has been sort-of doing so for the past week but today Lemuel decided to fix it by giving the offending hinge a sideswipe clout with a big hammer. For some reason this doesn't seem to have worked. Shame really: had it worked we were up for sorting some strategic issues the same way.

A phantom of delight

Warner Baxter pops in to see T. Aldous. They're going into London on Monday for a meeting with some high-ups as a result of one, other or all of last year's inspections. He's come over to work out a game plan and to make sure they've got whatever they need to take with them. In the middle of an open-plan office we hear T.Aldous say:

"I thought we'd work on it on the train going down."

The look that Warner gave him could freeze-dry raspberries.

"I'm all out of fag packets."

Her highly polished instrument is indicative of strong narcissistic traits

We'd been wondering about the state of the dishcloth in the staff room (and/or the state of some of the meals people have been having): even though it's changed daily it's always grimy and grey when anyone comes to wash up. Today we find the reason why: one of the library assistants polishes her shoes with it.

"I need to clean my shoes when I come in. What else should I be using?"

Some days you can only wonder that the sickness record isn't even higher.

Where's the exotic eastern mystery in a length of hosepipe?

Our only remaining librarian in this half of the Borough, Lola, is worrying about next week's rota at Helminthdale. She asks Julia, her line manager, for advice. Julia's response?

"I'm on leave next week."

Absurda non acta

A reader writes:

"You've been telling us for months about the preparations for libraries moving to new locations. Have any of them actually moved yet?"

Clue: the answer's "no."

Howl, howl, howl, howl

I want the reference librarians to go to the Library & Information Show next week so that they can see what's on the market that might be useful for the modernised fab 'n' groovy reference and information library services that we were supposed to be implementing after the Best Value Review four years ago. They, too, want to go, which is excellent news as it suggests that they're starting to bounce back from some of the nonsense that's been going on up there. I ask T.Aldous if they can go.

"That would be a good idea. I've no objection in principle to their going."

"So they can go?"

"Well, it's difficult. I can't see being able to send them both together."

"So if one goes one day and the other the other day...?"

"That's a possibility."

"Could we do it?"

"In principle, yes."

I had to leave it at that, my soul was crying.

Two scotch eggs and a jar of marmite

Ha! Pansy Potter's hoist on her own petard. Her replacement at Epiphany discovers a 1892 book on the shelves in adult lending and sends it in to be added to the catalogue.

Pansy's excuse is that when Reggie Clockwatcher went down to review the stock a few years back he looked at it and said: "Oh just leave it there."

"Didn't it get picked up when you were checking stock that's not issued lately?" I asked. "It was last issued in 1995."

"Oh yes. I could even tell you who borrowed it. But orders are orders, you know what they're like."

And so I do.

Ben Gunn and his musical cheeses

Staff meeting. The papers are full of rumours of library closures; we've a whole new reporting régime, including a bewildering array of monthly local targets and annual national targets; the place is full of new kit and new stock and scant few people; and there are two new reading initiatives to take on board. So we spend an hour hearing about Lola Ptitsa's parking problems.

Sigh...

He looked in the mirror and there was nobody there

Peculiar day. On the way into work I realised that for the first time in a long while (five or six months at least), I haven't thrown up before leaving home for work. Strangely disconnected all day.

Break-in at Seenbene Library; two PCs stolen. "Have you got the serial numbers?" asks T.Aldous. "Oh, I expect not," I reply. "That printer that went to Epiphany to replace the one that was stolen, where did that come from?" "It was one of the two in the ladies' toilet." "What did we buy it for?" "No idea." Any proper boss would have given me a bollocking. Mind you, any proper boss wouldn't have spent a month making an incomprehensible muddle out of the equipment inventory because he couldn't wait two days for me to come back from Xmas holiday.

"How are you getting on with the people counters?" I'm asked. "Oh, we get by," I reply.

I've just realised: I've not had any pains in my chest today either.

I'm probably already dead and too stupid to realise it.

Say goodnight to the folks Gracie

We're obviously all knackered. We were talking this lunchtime and Frog came out with:

"What day was Pancake Tuesday this year?"

And it took us ten minutes to realise the futility of our checking our diaries.

Gah

Oh it's obviously a good day at Catty. Ten minutes before closing time and they ring to say there's a problem with the printer for the People's Network.

It hadn't been switched on all day.

Curb your enthusiasm

We had to take the PACs off-line last year because the part of the network they used had been obsolete for a couple of years and it was being decommissioned. We'd been given a year's notice of it but I couldn't do anything about arranging replacements because of the usual budget problem (i.e. there ain't one so any time I need to do anything I have to rattle the charity tins for a few months and hope for the best). Cutting a very long story short, the first of the new PACs went live at Catty yesterday, that library having been chosen as they've been moaning long and loud about there not having one.

I rang this morning to make sure it was still behaving itself. No idea. They'd switched it on but nobody had looked at it.

We should have stamped little lions on them

Frog gets a 'phone call from Pansy Potter at Gypsy Cream: they've hidden one of the Easter eggs so well they can't find it. Please can they have another?

Oh to be in Helminthdale now that April's here

I hear that an urgent delivery of Easter events posters was slowed down on Wednesday by T.Aldous insisting they were all sent with (individually signed?) compliments slips.

Too easy

Himself pops his head through the doorway:

"Did you have any achievements last year? I need to do a list for committee."

"I've not killed you yet for a start," I thought.

Eggsasperating

Frog's set up an Easter activity for all the libraries next week: each library's been sent a six laminated cut-out Easter eggs plus a laminated quiz sheet and some competition forms. The idea is that staff "hide" the eggs somewhere in the library and children use the clues in the quiz sheet to find the eggs and answer the questions.

T.Aldous collars Frog:

"Who's supplying all these eggs and who's clearing up if any of them are broken?"

Alexander Graham Bell afflicted with laryngitis on the occasion of his inventing the telephone

I keep asking why the phrase "networked CD-ROMs" keeps cropping up in proposed notices and publicity materials for the library. Our resident Harry Potter look-alike (and resident Bungle Bear think-alike) explains:

"Well you will be networking CD-ROMs on the People's Network computers won’t you?"

"Well I could, except there aren’t any CD-ROMs to network because no one’s bought any."

"Can’t you put BBC Webwise on it?"

"Yes, but it won’t be available on all the People’s Network workstations. There aren’t 122 licences for the networking software."

"Can’t you buy some?"

"I don't have any money. Besides which, I’m not prepared to make a case for funding an additional 110 licences on the basis that you’d quite like to use them to network CD-ROMs you haven’t identified and haven’t bought in over six years' non-use of a CD-ROM network."

"Well, couldn’t you start small by just using the licences you’ve got to set up the CD-ROM network just in Helminthdale, say, and make Webwise available that way?"

"No. Don’t imagine that on top of all the other work I’m going to be expected to do over the next month I’m going to do a crash install of a system no one’s bothered with for the past six years just to make one free CD-ROM available at libraries that already have it on stand alone PCs."

Any clues as to why the Audit Commission say we score poorly on IT and marketing?

Boiling the bottoms of chrysanthemums

Today it is laptops. Went to a seriously boring meeting this morning at which some woman from aforementioned IT dept was giving a presentation. Now if I hadn't witnessed this due to enforced participation I wouldn't have believed it. I walked into the room to be greeted by plaintive cries of "do you know anything about laptops?"

"Maybe"

"Where do I plug my projector in?" remember this is someone who works in the IT Dept. Opening the panel at the back I plugged in projector and sat down.

"What about this?" She said holding up the power lead. Again I plugged it in and sat down.

"Do I need this?" She continued thrusting the comms lead in my direction. Repeat previous manouvre. And finally, and again this is someone from the IT dept,

"Where do I switch it on?"

Communing with imps

Daisy Duck had begged Seth not to take over any more boxes of books, bits of furniture and antediluvian sundries from the desks of librarians long-dead until they'd managed to sort themselves out after the panicky reopening. This afternoon Seth tools up with another vanload.

"What's this? I asked you not to bring any more yet."

"I'm really, really sorry, I've got to do it. T.Aldous' orders. He says you've no right to talk to me and that I've to do as he says because he's in charge not you."

The next time winter vomiting sickness hits the families of Dutch Bend I can see T.Aldous having to ring round to persuade people to do extra hours and put together a timetable for the five libraries Daisy ends up being responisble for (in lieu of the appointment of a Group Librarian to the post that's been vacant for three years).

General joy

I'm up to my ears in CIPFA stats; People's Network's going tits-up; I've got a thousand orders to roll over with no Procurement Librarian to share the burden and no possibility of using a batch rollover because of the way we do standing orders (my, they were fun, thank God Jimmy Huddersfield came in for a day gratis!)(I think he's crackers); Dutch Bend Library re-opened today after six weeks' closure (don't ask why re-open in a mad rush on a Thursday instead of letting staff do things properly and opening the following Monday); I'm climbing over boxes to get into my office because 20% of the year's new stock arrived in the past three weeks; I've been badgered about details of the moving of two libraries to new (crap) locations; we may or may not be moving to a new regional library system in the next month depending on somebody staying still for one moment and making a decision; and I'm trying to take up some of the MLA online reference offers by the deadlines despite not knowing whether or not there's any money for doing it. T.Aldous walks in and says:

"I've been worrying about Tench Road [closed since the beginning of January for repairs and it now turns out it'll be closed until the end of June]. If somebody was due to bring a book back the week the library closed and they brought it back to Tench Road when it re-opens then they'll just get four days' fines. If they bring it back to any other library then they'll get weeks' worth of fines. What will we do?"

"If they could bring the book back to any other library they could have done so any time since January. If they couldn't then there's not an issue."

"I'm just thinking: what would happen at the other libraries?"

We've only been doing things this way for sixteen years. We don't have enough problems as it is so he's casting about to invent some new ones.

I think my poker face must have deserted me. He left the office.

Plan view

In the space of half an hour Jim Lettuce and I find seven strategic plans for the library service for last financial year alone. Strangely enough, none of their outcomes include our being up shit creek, unable to open the doors without having to ask people to do extra hours with demoralised staff running round disguising the cracks like Preparation H on a cheap actress.

Please don't tell your friends...

All the staff from Dutch Bend turn up at Helminthdale as instructed by T.Aldous.

Julia rings down to Mary to ask if she's got anything for them to do as she can't cope with having so many staff upstairs in Lending.

It's clichéd to be cynical at Christmas

That's just what we need:

Frog and I have repaired to the Duck and Pullet for a pub lunch. We look out of the window: it's snowing.

My Fair Hound of the Baskervilles

"You need to think about changing the shelving sequence before you re-open on Thursday," T.Aldous tells Daisy Duck. This is six weeks after the library's closed, mind.

"What do you want?" asks Daisy.

"Consult staff and see what they think."

The staff are consulted and unanimously decide to stick with the status quo because they're all knackered and just want the place sorted before Thursday morning. Especially seeing as T.Aldous wants everyone up at Helminthdale on Tuesday afternoon as the heating will be off. (It was OK for them to all be working with no heating last week, mind). Daisy passes on the result of the consultation and she and her team get back to work.

For the next two hours T.Aldous wanders round like Banquo's ghost, muttering to each one she passes: "I don't know why you're putting those there. Now's the time to come up with a new shelving plan."

How nobody said: "sod off," I do not know.

Smiling and laughing and looking so fine I don't think you knew you were in this song

Pansy Potter's moving from Epiphany to Gypsy Cream Library, opposite the football ground. (Did I remember to tell you about the ducks in the car park?) When we were talking the other day I suggested that we do a stock check some time soon as there's stuff on the catalogue that I'm praying isn't there any more. She rings:

"You know all that old rubbish you thought hadn't been withdrawn properly and needs taking off the catalogue?"

"Yes..."

"It's here!!!"

Charlotte Green reads the Shipping Forecast for gentlemen of a certain age

I pop into Dutch Bend to reinstall the PCs and check up on the visitor counters (gah gah gah gah gah!!!)

Absent-mindedly I put my hand on the top of a shelf to steady myself as I mess around with a network point. The top of a 1970's wood and slat steel shelf unit holds just over a pint of water.

One o'clock jump

Seth's down at Dutch Bend helping to put up the last of the shelving and the counters and the buckets to catch the water from the new heating pipes because the caretaker there has slipped a disk trying to move heavy furniture around busy workmen while T.Aldous is on the hurry up. The man himself turns up to view progress. Just at the point where Seth is up to his armpits in a dodgy skeleton that may become a double-sized shelf unit T.Aldous says:

"You need to change the clocks now. People won't know what time it is."

It was suggested that it might be time to go.

Winter's discontent made glorious

Well I'll stand stuffing. The Acquisitions team have done it.

Just at this point another thirty-nine boxes turn up: a last-minute panic order by Mary. Non-fiction for Noddy. T.Aldous sourly surveys the scene (he hates piles of boxes that aren't book sale), tuts and tells the team: "Well, it had to be bought now. It can't be helped," and walks off. None of us have the first idea what he's on about.

Putting up a hook to hang my hopes upon

Desperately tidying up the catalogue prior to digging out stock statistics for CIPFA next weekend when T.Aldous tools up.

"We haven't withdrawn enough books. Can you do something about it?"

If I had a budget I'd hire a skip.

Sturm und drang

The carpet fitters have finished at Dutch Bend, after T.Aldous stuck his oar in about the best way to move the shelves and counter out of the way. The staff are now under pressure to get the shelving put up and restocked p.d.q. so the first lot of boxes of books arrived back from Pantagruel Library this lunchtime. Unfortunately, the carpet's not settled yet and the heating workmen are still working on the valves the only place to put the boxes is where the counter should go. Once the boxes are on the shelves the counter can go back. Except that the counter's in the way of the shelves.

Daisy Duck rings T.Aldous and begs for no more boxes to come back to Dutch Bend yet while they get sorted out. Seth's just rung to let her know that T.Aldous has told him to pick up another vanload.

"We need to have the library re-opened as soon as possible. There are too many boxes of books lying around in libraries," says God.

Jumpers for goalposts

Two libraries closed and their staff available for to provide cover and there's just one member of staff in the lending library in the main library here in Helminthdale.

Julia tells the caretaker not to open the doors until she says so.

"It's late now and they're queueing at the door!"

"I don't care. Wait until I tell you."

"What if they start banging on the door again?"

"Ignore them."

An excellent way of ensuring visitor figures and customer satisfaction soar ever skywards.

Say, does anyone know how to Madison?

The heating pipes and new boiler have been installed at Dutch Bend, though not actually commissioned. This is the point at which T.Aldous insists that the carpet fitters get into the library to lay carpets around men in big boots and dripping heating valves.

Bottleneck sweater

A long T.Aldous monologue ends with him saying

"And there just aren't enough people around, especially with Julia off sick and Mary on leave..."

I was just about to sympathise when I remembered that there aren't enough people because he's left one management post vacant for three years and another two vacant for twenty-one months.

Mood indigo

Someone in Helminthdale's lending library has locked the password again. The password changed yesterday but nobody told anyone who's in today and God alone knows what effort is made at recording these things for staff information. I get the password unlocked and pass the word. It's now locked again; someone new came in at lunchtime and blah blah blah...

Julia rings Mary to find out when the password was changed as she knows nothing about it (why Mary should when Julia's in charge up there I do not know).

"Can you have a word with Julia about this password?" asks Mary.

"I can have a number of words with Julia about this password," I reply.

"Don't worry, you're busy. I'll deal with it."

Light, power & speed

I have to squeeze my way past 56 boxes of incoming books to get to my desk. Last year T.Aldous claimed that the reason why we only bought 62% of the standard target stock was because of vacancies in the Acquisitions team. They were very, very offended: the real reason was because T.Aldous froze the book fund until August while he dicked about with ideas about targetting the spending that never got any further than glimpses of godly notions. So they're damned if he's getting away with it again: even with two posts vacant for a year or more and another for six months the team (both of them) are determined that the service is going to meet the standard and in so doing demolish another of T.Aldous' pet excuses: "if the standard could be met last year with just two of them left in post, why aren't you on target this year?"

The plan involves receiving more than 20% of this year's stock in the next two weeks. Good trick if they can do it!

Unpage the colours!

Deep joy.

As if we don't have enough to worry about, T.Aldous has decided that seeing as how Dutch Bend is closed for big plumbing we can get a new carpet in, too. We know it's going to be Sage Blue but by gum will we waste a lot of time getting there. Sigh...

A place of delightful prospects

I'm in the lift with Seth. He says:

"Has anyone told you the printer's been stolen from Epiphany?"

"No. When?"

"Monday."

"Oh."

"Thought you'd like to know."

"Yes, I suppose so."

You only busk when it's Xmas

T. Aldous is giving Daisy Duck a hard time for letting two library assistants from the same library have the same day off. No matter that the staff covering the absence will both have worked there recently, know what they're doing and are extremely capable. No matter that long-standing vacancies mean that you can't predict where any two members of staff anywhere in the Borough will be three days running. Oh no. As T. Aldous explained:

"What would happen if it were Christmas? You need to think before you act."

Rumour in cuneiform

Spring is in the air... the daffodils are starting to show yellow in the fields; the mistle thrushes are at it like knives in the cherry trees in next door's garden; and rumours are skittering around the consequences of the proposed library closures which nobody's actually seen and nobody will admit to but which we all know about one way or another.

Unlike the old days, even if the council actually did agree to close any libraries (and sentiment aside it needs to close at least four) it isn't as easy as them going for the line of least resistance; or putting one in the eye of the opposition party; or holding a grudge against a library assistant who wouldn't let you off the charge for a lost book because you're a councillor. The council's committed to trying to meet as many public library standards as possible (because of their commitment to the public service ethos in general and the public library agenda in particular and nothing to do with meeting audit commission targets or getting ticks in boxes to make sure the Rate Support Grant comes in sweetly), so the opening hours; book loans and visitors lost in the cuts have to be made up elsewhere. So it makes sense to finally let go of libraries which are in terminal decline and reallocate their resources someplace where they could be used. Like having all the branch libraries open in the afternoon to get the after-school trade. Needless to say, this being Helminthdale this won't happen in a million years but you can dream.

The latest rumour is that there'll just be five "superlibraries" in the Borough delivering services the like as you could barely conceive. The day that Helminthdale has the money, political will and project management skills to conceive and deliver five superlibraries they'll find the Pope singing bawdy songs atop a Belisha beacon in a backstreet in Irlam.

Paper chases

A chat with Liz at Gunsmoke Avenue Library amuses me. She's taken to buying the newspaper for the library herself, having given up with the newsagent.

"I'd keep having to chase him for an invoice so that we could pay it. In the end he said to me: 'can you do me an invoice?' So I wrote one and he lost it. I did another and he forgot to submit it. I did lists of the papers and magazines we'd had off him, including the dates and prices, and he kept losing them. In the end I gave up. Forty-five pence a day is worth it for not having to make lists up for him."

Life just kissed you "hello"

Betty Comstock, who's old enough to know better, was wearing a low-cut blouse at the counter today. She leant forward to hand some books to a little lad who turned to his mum and said:

"Mummy... Why has that lady got a bum on her chest?

Milky drinks and Sudafeds

Daisy Dormouse, the reference librarian from Dutch Bend, collars me.

"Is it true that we're getting some more PCs?"

"Yes."

"That's ridiculous. How are we to cope with any more PCs?"

As half of their time is spent dealing with people who want to get onto the People's Network, find all the PCs in use and then complain or book a later session or both I should have thought it would be a bit of a help.

And if we were to act on January's reference use survey which confirmed that 73% of all references used by the public were on the shelves behind the counter and had to be asked for then the reference librarians would have the time to do a bit more than just be glorified cybercafe receptionists and checkout girls.

I used to keep wickets for the Quakers in my Joy Division oven gloves

A colleague reminds me of the old joke:

An artist, a designer and a council architect are at a bar and they get talking about women. The artist pipes up:

"I tell you, woman must have been created by an artist: who else would have created such beauty?"

"Ah no, woman must have been created by a designer: who else would have created such form and function?"

"No, you're both wrong. Woman was created by a council architect."

"How do you make that out?"

"Who else would put a recreation area next to a sewage outlet?"

In church hall if wet

T. Aldous' turn for Noddery: he turns up at the Community Centre for a site meeting about the new library there and finds an art class in the room but no architects. Turns out they forgot to come to the party.