Wild tales of library prognostication among the British peoples

 

Dealing with another episode of being short-staffed at my library, I was taking care of something in the back room and dashing out to the front desk where two people were awaiting help.

"How can I help you?" I asked in a British accent.

They were a couple dealing with a power outage from our recent storms and wanted to know where they could work on their computers.

And they were both British!

I mentioned that it was funny that I spoke to them in an English accent before I even heard them speak.

They didn't care.

Which is the kind of thing one would expect from the sort of people who only visit the library when their power is down.

My rainbow animals

 

You have seen a couple of them now, in the vast repertoire of my all consuming AI library short films: Rainbow animals!

You take an animal. You make the animal rainbow colored. You put the rainbow colored animal into my library. And after 75 attempts, prompts, nudges, and so on, you get a great 15 or 20 second clip all together of a real life rainbow animal alive in the world.

It's super exciting!

I showed you here one of the cats I made a few days ago. It was a rainbow cat!

They have a Reddit devoted to all things rainbow. I very rarely post to Reddit because, well, people are too mean. But the rainbow subreddit is all about rainbows! And it's all about not being mean. And it's very clear how they welcome everything rainbow no matter what.

So I thought "I'll show them my cat."

And they all yelled at me.

Not everyone likes AI!

So I went away and breathed and, after just a little bit, I was okay. 

And then I went and I made this rainbow animal to express my feelings. 

Our bathroom is in need of serious help

 

The first person I talked to when I came to the front desk of the library this afternoon was a very large man who told me "Your bathroom is in serious need of help." Then he added "Your bathroom upstairs is also in serious need of help."

I told him I would pursue the matter. 

I wasn't excited about it, but the fact that he said both bathrooms were in need of serious help suggested a higher possibility that neither were in serious need of help. This is like if someone tells me one of our DVD's won't play, I'm pretty sure that the DVD has problems, but if they tell me that none of our DVD's will play, it's usually the person telling me about them that has the problem.

Not that I'm not sympathetic.

And either way, I had a bathroom to check out.

On the way to the bathroom, in the Friends' Bookstore, I found a whole bunch of footprints in brownish red. I started to get very nervous. But then the footprints did not continue to the bathroom and I was relieved.

I looked in the bathroom, holding my breath. 

I didn't minutely examine the bathroom. I merely gave it a look. Everything appeared basically white, well, whitish, and the debris level was... average. So I think it maybe wasn't in serious need of help.

But I scrubbed it all down with a tile brush and bleach just to be sure.

The Scholomance School

 

Every three or four years, over the past, er, 50 years or so, I suddenly get the idea that it would be fun to make some t-shirts expressing the cultural icons of interest to me. In the mid seventies I painted Rod Carew on a t-shirt in acrylics, but the image tragically melted in the dryer. In 1981 I drew up, with fabric markers, a Grateful Dead shirt which I sold at a Grateful Dead concert for, holy mother of god, $10, an outrageous sum of money that was not a harbinger of my future in the arts, or maybe was, seeing as it was just one shirt. Twenty years ago I handmade shirts for myself to wear celebrating the work of authors Daniel Pinkwater, Janet Evanovich, and Jasper Fforde. I later met Jasper Fforde and he hand-signed my shirt and took a picture of it! This too was and wasn't a harbinger of things to come. For instance, the Newberry winning author of The One and Only Ivan came to my library this past year and liked one of my pictures so much I had to sign it for her!

I don't know what any of this means, except, I like to make t-shirts. And so with the best new ai photo generator there is, I thought I'd take a stab at some new t-shirt designs that until recently have been a bit beyond me and my technology. Since I am rereading one of my favorite trilogies ever, The Scholomance Trilogy, by Naomi Novak, I though it might be nice to make a kind of Scholomance School logo.

Boy oh boy did it come out well.

Or I should say, five or ten designs out of a hundred came out really well! I'll probably make one into a t-shirt pretty soon. And I might make many other designs of other books as well. It is fun and rewarding!

I might even get ten dollars somewhere from it.

But mostly, as you know, what I've been working on is my short ai movies. These have an even lower rate of things turning out well, but I find that process irresistible to tinker with, perhaps because the pay off is even greater. 

So I decided to see how it might animate my Scholomance logo.

Oh lord.

And if you think this is good, you should read the books. They were 100% written by a human!

Anyway, here's the design. Click, as ever, to animate (though I now have a longer version (twenty whole seconds!) linked, so the "come alive" thing will be not exact.

Me, Dan, and the stormy night

 

On a night where the dire thunderstorms were rolling in it was just me and Dan for the evening. This is traditionally considered an emergency level of staffing. But fortunately it was busy, wait, no, back that up. It was unfortunate that it was busy. Also Dan likes to take breaks, and he is very committed to them.

So there I was at the front desk and with no one in the back room and, well,  with no one anywhere. A line had formed and I was also answering phones. The young people I work with don't understand that this is how things always used to be around here, back in the 90's and early aughts. Now it was just... nostalgic. I mean, I was putting people on hold. I was helping multiple people at a time. It was all happening!

I even picked up the phone while everyone was needing help and there was a deaf person on the phone!

It was okay though. They had an interpreter cause I can't use my sign language over the phone speaker.

Also I don't know sign language.

After what felt like hours of weather alarms, when the storm finally started, everyone disappeared, but Dan showed up, so that was nice. 

He was bidding on a scroll saw on his phone.

He didn't win.

Just a short line of promotional footage

 

I am so bad at marketing that I defy the odds and create a black hole where all marketing goes to die. This could be useful because my superpower could be used to bring down the very institution of Capitalism, whose ravages threaten to destroy the whole world!

I am ready to do this noble work!

If only I could get the word out.

So, all that said, the marketing featured below is not really meant as marketing. It's more like a dry exercise- possibly a satire of marketing? Or maybe it's just more of my endless dream world. 

Recently, I have been making many, many videos dealing with bringing Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, and their paintings all to life, but I haven't been entirely satisfied with my copious results. So at some point, as a lark, I ran some more frivolous experiments with these two giants of the arts. 

These offhand ones of course worked marvelously. Go figure.

As to the third picture?

He's just a little jester, hired to get the good word out at the library I work at. He seems to enjoy the work.

(Remember: click to bring the pictures to life)

The most amazing videos you will ever see!

 

Sure, it's pretty simple nowadays. 

Say I want a rainbow colored cat in the library. I could dye a cat, but WHO WOULD DYE A CAT!

So I go to an AI photo generator and say "rainbow cat" in six or seven different ways and end up with 22 different rainbow colored cats that are all so fantastic I hardly know what to do with them all.

But fine, I choose one lovely cat more or less at random, and then hit "remove background". Three years ago this was an hour long process that usually looked a mess unless I got lucky. Now if I'm unlucky it takes me five minutes to deal with minor problems, and, voila, I can just plop the cat into an appropriate picture of my library. This too used to have to have all the stars of perspective line up in a stroke of rare and phenomenal luck, but now just involves me letting photoshop situate the cat as if it had been simply sitting in that library like a champ!

Rainbow cat in a library.

In the past I would have been thrilled, and I am a little, but it's not enough! I need video. So I plop the picture into the video machine, and, 20 iterations later, that are all so, so, SO close to perfect, I am finished!

I can show it to you!

I am so proud.

But first I have to do this orangutan.

And then there's the picture of Van Gogh showing off his "Clerkmanifesto" arm tattoo.

And there's the blue fox on the library shelf.

And I'd like to show you them all, but now it's midnight. So how about this instead:

It's really all about the journey.

oh, all right...

Frequency of miracles

 

My AI video generation obsession continues. Whether that is good news or bad news for readers of this long running bolt hole of the Internet is beyond me. However it goes for you in particular, the new instructions apply and are blessedly simple: click the enticing (or not at all enticing) picture below, and watch it come to life.

It is a miracle!

A miracle!

And to say that each miracle comes at the cost of a hundred slowly and obstinately misunderstood requests would be churlish.

The Universe has always been hard of hearing.

The world you just missed out on

 

Reading in bed, from the Scholomance Trilogy, already perhaps my sixth time through the amazing books, I felt so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. So I turned off my booklight, set aside my book, and cuddled up into the edge of sleep, where, for mysterious, magical, obvious reasons, it suddenly occurred to me that I had not written my daily column for clerkmanifesto.

I make sure there is one of these here every morning at 6:30. 

It is not the sort of thing I mess up.

But that one was pretty close.

We came within inches of me sleeping now, and you...

We'll never know.

One rule to be a good library clerk

 

Now that my vast career slowly winds to an end, let me lay it out for you: 

How to be a good library clerk.

To be a good library clerk takes only one thing: 

Correct more mistakes than you make.

Ah, the young one asks: But how does one know if they are correcting more mistakes than one is making, for if we knew the mistakes we made wouldn't we not make them?

Alas that I have an answer, and it is dark!

If you are not in a state that oscillates between irritation at all the mistakes you are always correcting, and sheer horror at how regularly your co-workers seem to make those mistakes, then you are making more mistakes than you solve.

 

Clerk emeritus

 

I am back from vacation. And here I am yet again at the front desk of the library. Unclear on the exact dates, today may be the exact 30th anniversary of when I started working at this job.

I should fucking own this place by now!

So in this last year (yes, this will be my last year here working at this library), I will do my best to pretend I do.

I 

own 

this 

place.

And what does that mean? You may wonder.

Me too.

I think, after all the effort, and the accomplishment of my dreams, it might mean that it doesn't mean anything at all.

Picture to life: Penguins

 

 

While on vacation we are running a pictures come to life series here at clerkmanifesto.

Simply click one of my old clerkmanifesto pictures that once upon a time I crafted of my library, and then watch it come to life!

Exciting!

But if it's not exciting to you in particular, we are also including a three-star blast from the past library column for you below to keep you entertained while I loll about for awhile on a great lake.

Today is the last one of these. I am almost back to business as usual around here, whatever that means. But one last picture come to life here, and one last blast from the past.

Catch 22 Library, 2014:

There I was putting another cart of books in order by authors' last names. Patterson goes before Preston, Sail before Suzanne's Diary, when I came upon something magical. There were two identical copies of Catch 22 on my cart! Yes, this sort of delightful thing has certainly happened to me before, but this time, with such a fine and funny book, it seemed somehow so visceral. How neatly these two books went together on my cart! How little fuss in regard to their relation to each other! One copy could go before the other or after the other and it was all the same. And then it came to me: we have, all these years at the library, been making it so unnecessarily hard on ourselves. All these vast varieties of items, all different, in so many ways; different types of media, different subjects, different author last names, different titles, thousands and thousands of different things.

It's a horrible lot to keep track of, to put in order, to organize and account for.
But what if we, at the library, had just one item. No DVDs or talking books, no paper backs or non fiction, no genres or stream of authors through history. One author. One subject. One story. One book. How about that Catch 22 for instance. That was a very good book. We could just have 10,000 copies of Catch 22! Think of how deliriously easy it would be to put a full cart of those in order, how easy to shelve them, how easy to find them! And reference questions, my God!

"Do you have any copies of To Kill a Mockingbird?"

I don't even need to look it up. I don't even need a computer. "No. We have Catch 22. It's by Joseph Heller."

Ha, you say, but what about those people who want to read To Kill a Mockingbird?

I am not heartless. I have thought of this. Each branch in the library system can have their own book. So, for instance, one of our other branches could have all To Kill a Mockingbirds. It would be a little like those One Book programs cities sometimes have, where everyone is supposed to read the same book, only this would be on a different sort of scale, and more permanent, and more beneficial to our shelving system, oh so much more beneficial to our shelving system. Each branch could, instead of being known for their neighborhood or town, could be known for their book. We, for instance, would henceforth be known as The Catch 22 Library. Sure, someone could still come in and say "Do you have a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird?" But I can say "No, this is The Catch 22 Library." And I could put a lot of emphasis on "The Catch 22 Library." I even wrote it in bold so you could see. "If you want To Kill a Mockingbird" I would say "You need to go to the To Kill a Mockingbird Library."

Sure, it might be a pain for the patron to have to schlep all the way over there for a book, but I think that once they get there, they'll be delighted at how easy the book is to find on their shelves.

Picture to life: Cow!

  

While on vacation we are running a pictures come to life series here at clerkmanifesto.

Simply click one of my old clerkmanifesto pictures that once upon a time I crafted of my library, and then watch it come to life!

Exciting!

But if it's not exciting to you in particular, we are also including a three-star blast from the past library column for you below to keep you entertained while I loll about for awhile on a great lake.

See you soon!

Ratings, 2015:

Like any well functioning workplace all our employees here in my library system are kept track of on our rating system. Just because this rating system takes place entirely in my head does not mean it doesn't exist. And just because it's barely conscious doesn't mean it isn't wildly complex.


It is frighteningly complex. Even I don't really understand it.


But at first glance it is actually quite simple. Everyone who works in this library system has a score from one to one hundred. The score is an overall indication of employee quality, pleasantness, effectiveness, contribution and competence. The higher the score the better the employee. So obviously it would be better to work a shift with a co-worker whose rating is 74 over one with a 32. But there are many ways for these scores to quickly grow complex. Would you rather see a new library page position, one of maybe 15 positions, filled by an 82, or would you benefit more if, say, the head of automation services were improved up to a 50 from his or her 22? An 81 library director, or property manager, or human resources person could have a hugely positive impact on my work life, but would that be more so than, perhaps, an 88 librarian who shares my feelings about soccer, or cats? And all of that is before we delve into the profound variability of these numbers. A staff member may be a 68 one day, and yet an 81 on another. They may be a 7 when I'm following them on the check in machine, but a 54 when they're off shelving for the afternoon. And what about on a day when I am working with an 11, a 16, a 24, a 29, and a 55? That 55, usually blankly acceptable, is suddenly my lifeline for the day. Surely a curve comes into it. Isn't that 55 now a 75 or an 80? I am inclined to think so. To be really accurate we need to involve the relativity of worker quality and the fact that everyone is better or worse in different positions, doing different jobs, and facing unique moment to moment challenges. A staff person's ranking is best graphed as it undulates across a time chart. The color of the line should change with hues indicating their relation to the average and perhaps line thickness would speak to the challenges facing them.


This is all a lot to keep track of in my head. I struggle to keep up with it all. But it's important that I know where I am with everyone.


What's my score?



My score as a clerk? 


God, I hope I don't have a score. That would be rude!

Pictures to life: Volcano

 

 

While on vacation we are running a pictures come to life series here at clerkmanifesto.

Simply click one of my old clerkmanifesto pictures that once upon a time I crafted of my library, and then watch it come to life!

Exciting!

But if it's not exciting to you in particular, we are also including a three-star blast from the past library column for you below to keep you entertained while I loll about for awhile on a great lake.

See you soon!

You Trust Us..., 2016:

A less experienced colleague of mine comes from the front desk of the library to consult with me in the back room. "There's no way to give a receipt to someone for returning books, is there?" He asks.

Actually there is! People don't ask for them often, which is why only old timers like myself are keepers of this ancient technique. It doesn't work well, but we can do it. However, because in every case I have encountered, it is a wildly obnoxious request, and one that if even five percent of our patrons made would grind our circulation to a crawl, I always seek to make it as miserable as possible for the patron making the request. I am not cold or mean. Patrons are prepared for that. I am friendly. I gather together as many staff as possible at the computer. We discuss and instruct how the check in receipt is generated. We experiment with futile attempts to find a better check in receipt option. We must make sure to clearly demonstrate that this is a special occasion, a freak occurrence to be used as a wonderful teaching tool for the obscure processes of circulation. No time or effort is spared. We strategize over new ideas, how to communicate the process throughout the system, and what really is the best procedure.

But of course we're delighted to do it for the patron. It's just, naturally, with something so bizarre and particular, going to take a long, long, long time.

So after an extended trial we get this patron the check in receipt that really doesn't show much anyway. I am free to return to my backed up work on the automated check in machine.

My colleague comes back a little later. The same patron doesn't have card or I.D. and wants to do some small thing on their record. Can we?

No no no! Of course not! Never!

You don't trust us, how can we trust you?

Picture to life: Dinosaur

 

 

While on vacation we are running a pictures come to life series here at clerkmanifesto.

Simply click one of my old clerkmanifesto pictures that once upon a time I crafted of my library, and then watch it come to life!

Exciting!

But if it's not exciting to you in particular, we are also including a three-star blast from the past library column for you below to keep you entertained while I loll about for awhile on a great lake.

See you soon!

Book Cleaning 101, 2017:

A book comes back to your library sticky. A lot of library workers don't know this, but you don't have to throw it away when this happens. Yes, it is always easiest to throw library books in the garbage, and with library budgets as lavish as they are it is tempting. But it is important to remember we are institutions of the people, and throwing away the peoples' money will eventually get enough of them so upset and depressed that they will try to commit National Suicide by swallowing increasingly poisonous and dangerous Republicans. So before the nation elects some kind of unhinged, self-absorbed, freakishly colored lunatic to be President of the United States why don't we try cleaning this book instead?

Good, I'm glad you're with me. I'm even going to tell you how, professionally, to make this library book fit for library use once again. 

There are a mere 14 simple steps.



Step 1:

Wipe with a paper towel to get a feel for the substance on the book.


Step 2:

Regard the sticky book with thoughtful consideration for five minutes.


Step 3:

Grab a wet wipe because that worked once on something once before. Maybe ink stains? Notice that the book is now slightly cleaner and slightly stickier.


Step 4:

Go to get the Goo Gone and yell "What the hell happened to the Goo Gone! It was just here two days ago!"


Step 5:

Notice the bottle of rubbing alcohol and grab that. Pour some out on a towel, rub it in, and notice it seems to be doing something. Though you're not sure what.


Step 6:

Pour a little of the rubbing alcohol directly onto the cover of the book, except have a whole bunch pour out instead and have it saturate the book.


Step 7:

Notice how the book already smells better and seems safe to touch. Also the book seems more genial and relaxed.


Step 8:

Start mopping up the rubbing alcohol and rubbing the sticky places until the book is, A. More sanitized than it ever has been or ever will be again,  B. Clean of all it's library labeling that dissolved in the alcohol, and C. Now full of something more like lumps of sticky stuff instead of its previous even surface of sticky stuff.


Step 9: 

Go talk to every single one of your co-workers until one of them coughs up the goo gone (figuratively).


Step 10:

Spray some goo gone on the surface of the book. Clean with more paper towels. It's working!


Step 11:

Unavoidably notice that while the book is now immaculate, and cleaned of all the sticky stuff, it is now also unpleasantly slimy to the touch and will cause anyone coming in contact with it to recoil in horror.


Step 12:

Apply more rubbing alcohol to the book to try to clean off, or cut, the intractable goo gone residue. This works pretty well and you can adjust according to whether you prefer the overwhelming rubbing alcohol smell or the overwhelming goo gone smell.


Step 13:

Reapply all the library stickers you melted off with the rubbing alcohol.


Step 14:

Try to dry all the pages and places that got wet from all the rubbing alcohol you drowned the book in. Standing it up in a spread open configuration works okay, especially if you have a small fan you can point at it for 16 hours or so.




And that's it. Your book is genuinely like new, except for its faint air of goo gone slipperiness and having the edges of the pages all kind of wavy crinkled from getting wet with rubbing alcohol. Circulate it with pride!

Picture to life: Cheetah

 

 

While on vacation we are running a pictures come to life series here at clerkmanifesto.

Simply click one of my old clerkmanifesto pictures that once upon a time I crafted of my library, and then watch it come to life!

Exciting!

But if it's not exciting to you in particular, we are also including a three-star blast from the past library column for you below to keep you entertained while I loll about for awhile on a great lake.

See you soon!

Staying Late, 2017:

As I write this, the back room at my library, which at this time of night should normally hold two or three people, has seven people. As of 20 minutes ago five of them should not be here.

This perhaps is a good time to remind you of one of our great workplace dichotomies:


There are two kinds of people who work at this library: those who try to be here as little as possible, and those who try to be here as much as possible.


Of the five:

One, who is here seven days a week, called in sick and then came in anyway.

One, on his way out of the library, drifted into an impromptu office meeting about things that I feel confident are neither useful nor important.

One is talking to a co-worker that I'm afraid he likes overmuch.

One is... just... here. Like a potted plant.

One is doing many speedy little things, and zipping around, all like she is trying to leave, but can't figure out how.


I could also say:

 
There are two kinds of people who work at this library: those who have somewhere else to go and those who... don't.

Or

There but for the grace of God go I.

Or

Soon enough they will all be gone for the day, and so will I.

Picture to life: Fozzy Bear!

 

 

While on vacation we are running a pictures come to life series here at clerkmanifesto.

Simply click one of my old clerkmanifesto pictures that once upon a time I crafted of my library, and then watch it come to life!

Exciting!

But if it's not exciting to you in particular, we are also including a three-star blast from the past library column for you below to keep you entertained while I loll about for awhile on a great lake.

See you soon!

How to shelve seven books, 2018:

Any amateur can shelve books. One need only know the alphabet, or how to count, to shelve books. A child can shelve books. No, I am going to tell you how to professionally shelve books, seven of them. Obviously it can be done quicker than in my guide, but to be done properly and professionally you will need to allow a full hour for the process.

How To Professionally Shelve Seven Books

1. Have a snack!

Have you taken your 15 minute break yet? Better safe than sorry and you're probably kind of hungry anyway. If you're not hungry, have a glass of water. Libraries are notoriously and dangerously dry.


2. Take care of some stray business.

Surely there was some book you were going to mend. Or you had to find a new gel pen. Or you had a question about your vacation time. Or you were going to try and track down that missing item. Do it now! Now is the time!


3. See what all those co-workers are talking about.

There are always some co-workers somewhere talking about something. You better go and see what it is.


4. Go see what carts of books need to be shelved.

You'll want to choose carefully here. The cart needs to be in order. It shouldn't be in an area where someone is already shelving. It shouldn't be overcrowded with books. And it should be the oldest cart of your options. Take your time choosing.


5. Move your cart into the pre going to the shelving area.

There actually is no "pre going to the shelving area". You really just want to push the cart over towards the bathrooms in preparation for step six.


6. Go to the bathroom.

You don't want to get up into the shelving and then have to leave to go to the bathroom.


7. Head towards the stacks with your books and have a chat with a co-worker.

There is always, always a co-worker on your way to the shelving. I don't know why. But it would be rude not to stop and have a chat. I suggest saying something like "I now only have 14 minutes left to shelve this whole cart of books." This is just an icebreaker. You will invariably talk about something else, like global climate change, and how we're all doomed.


8. Off you go to your shelving. 

You only have eight minutes left and so might be tempted to call it an hour and prepare for your next shift location. But if you instead apply yourself in the brief shelving time left there is no telling how many books you can still get shelved.


9. Shelve your seven books.

I was just kidding. There is telling how many books you can still get shelved. It's seven. And no, you don't count the three misshelved books you come across that you have to shelve in the right place. And you don't count the stack of five books lying around in the stacks that you also have to shelve.  But yes, you are allowed to shelve a few of the thickest books from your cart so it doesn't look like you took a cart to the shelves and didn't shelve any of it.

Because you did! You totally did. You shelved seven books, and you did it professionally.

Well done.

Pictures come to life: Raccoons!

  

While on vacation we are running a pictures come to life series here at clerkmanifesto.

Simply click one of my old clerkmanifesto pictures that once upon a time I crafted of my library, and then watch it come to life!

Exciting!

But if it's not exciting to you in particular, we are also including a three-star blast from the past library column for you below to keep you entertained while I loll about for awhile on a great lake.

See you soon!

The Wounds of Children, 2018:

Yesterday evening at the library small children were eager to show me their injuries.

I was registering a man for a library card while he was holding his two year old daughter. Somehow her hurt toe came into the discussion. Last week, apparently, something fell on it. At this point the child vigorously insisted on being set down, whereupon she promptly removed her left shoe and had her father place her on my desk so that she could show me her black big toenail. We all agreed her nail was almost certainly going to fall off, a prospect that seemed to especially appeal to the small child.

I was also in conversation with the slightly older son, maybe 3 or 4, of one of my co-workers. He had come for his regular weekly visit. With absolute relish he told me about how he had fallen down. Then he carefully pointed out all his injuries: both of his knees, his head, and his two palms. To be honest I couldn't see anything anywhere. So I told him about when I was his age I hit my head on a wall and had to get stitches. Then I took off my hat, leaned down, and showed him the scar at the top of my forehead which has probably been invisible now for thirty years. This reminded the young lad of two unspecified bumps on the top of his head which he demonstrated to me with much care. At this point in the conversation I thought he might enjoy seeing the big, weird scabby burn wound on my forearm. So I showed that to him. He was pretty stunned. But not wanting to impress under false pretenses I told him how it was merely a temporary tattoo. I have some nice wound tattoos, you know, that are on paper and that you can press and transfer to your skin by soaking and pressing it. I had just put this on yesterday.

He looked at me like I am very strange.

Oh kid, there is a method to my madness.

Then he told me all about what he got to eat for dessert that evening.

Pictures to life: Sheep!

  

While on vacation we are running a pictures come to life series here at clerkmanifesto.

Simply click one of my old clerkmanifesto pictures that once upon a time I crafted of my library, and then watch it come to life!

Exciting!

But if it's not exciting to you in particular, we are also including a three-star blast from the past library column for you below to keep you entertained while I loll about for awhile on a great lake.

See you soon!

The Shelving Dilemma, 2019: 







Dear Library Staff:



As you know the upstairs shelving, all our adult fiction and non fiction, has grown tight.  One can hardly fit a new book in up there without twisting a shoulder in the effort. There are a number of reasons for this problem.

1. People just don't check out books like they used to, what with all their really cool, um, portable phones they have instead.

2. We keep chipping away at our available shelving space in order to sneak in makerspace areas, free dental service areas, circus acrobat classes, and lounge areas for all our extremely tired library patrons. And they sure are exhausted!

3. We keep buying new books, and the more we buy the more they make to sell us, which we simply cannot resist!

4. The book market is flooded, it's a buyer's market, and it's no longer worth people's effort to steal anything from our collection anymore.



We have employed multiple solutions to the problem of our disappearing available shelving.

1. Kill lists, where we print off the name of all the books that haven't been checked out in a year and relocate them to a couch factory.

2. Machine book processing, which not only saves staff time, but causes the occasional book to get eaten.

3. Extended check out periods. Did you know that officially starting on January 1, the new check out period for most items will be extended to seven years? Some of these books really do take a while to get through.


Nevertheless our methods to free up shelving, as you can easily see upstairs right now, have not been effective enough. That is why, starting next week, we are raising the stakes. Under the presumption that anything still on our shelves is definitionally unwanted, we will be weeding everything on the shelf at our library. So if there's anything you'd rather not see weeded from our collection I suggest you check it out this week and store it in your own house.

Do please bring it back though by the end of 2027.



Thank you,




The Library Manangement

Pictures to life: Cat and mouse

 

While on vacation we are running a pictures come to life series here at clerkmanifesto.

Simply click one of my old clerkmanifesto pictures that once upon a time I crafted of my library, and then watch it come to life!

Exciting!

But if it's not exciting to you in particular, we are also including a three-star blast from the past library column for you below to keep you entertained while I loll about for awhile on a great lake.

See you soon!

Cat and Mouse:

Dealing out of the back of the library, 2019:

There are certain books, when they come through the donations, appear in the Friends Bookstore, or show up on a "weeded" cart, that I can't resist grabbing up. And so I do. I don't take them home. I squirrel them away in some locker, or some crevice of the work room at the library where I know no one will bother them. And then I try to remember that they're there, waiting until they're needed.

Today I came across The Wee Free Men, weeded from one of our smaller branches and headed apparently into our little bookstore. 

Now it's mine. 

Or not, exactly, mine.

I know too many librarians too well to really trust them. And I've been working in libraries too long to completely trust them either. Or maybe it's the culture I don't trust. What is admired and recommended today is forgotten in 20 years. I've seen it happen. The brilliant Adrian Mole Diaries were a bona fide publishing phenomenon in their day. I read them half a dozen times. I loved them wildly. When I started working here it would have been harder to find a library that didn't have The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 than one that did. If only I'd grabbed up a few of those ubiquitous copies from back then. Or maybe I did. But they're gone now. Like King of the Schnorrers another fading from memory masterpiece, or The Star Diaries, or The Magic Christian, it is now strictly a special request book as far as my reasonably large library system goes. I recommended Adrian Mole twice to people in the past couple of weeks. But it's a hard sell when one has to special order it through interlibrary loan. People want things now. It's hard enough to convince most people to read any recommendation in my experience, but if one can whip it off the shelf and put it right in their hot little hands, one stands a chance at least. And it's even more satisfying if one can say "Our library doesn't carry it anymore, but I just so happen to have one stashed away in the back room." Adding in something near a whisper "I'd like you to have it."

I am pretty satisfied with the library I work in, until I'm not. I have my own fair list of items that I'm convinced belong in this building for all people for all times. Many of those books are actually here most of the time already. I don't think I have to worry too much at this point about Left Hand of Darkness, Cats Cradle, The Chosen, Tortilla Flat, Pride and Prejudice or The Lord of the Rings. And at least for the time being , Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, The Eyre Affair, the Lockwood books, and The Name of the Wind seem pretty safe. But I've got a pretty long list of things to keep an eye on, things I don't trust the world to hold in proper respect forever. Yes, absolutely, one can grab Wee Free Men now, but already not as readily as one should be able to for so exquisite a book. I don't know what will happen in 20 years. But hopefully I'll at least have a few copies of it socked away. And if you'll let me talk you into reading it, you can have one.

Vacation plans

I am soon off on vacation with my dear wife to a freakishly large lake where a strangely charming, yet sort of decrepit northern town, sits quietly on its shore.

I'm looking forward to it. 

For vacations around here at clerkmanifesto I disconnect from the Internet. And for clerkmanifesto I prepare the requisite columns ahead of time, to roll out in my absence. Alas though that every time I set down to do that preparatory writing I instead embroil myself in endless, sometimes agonizing ai renderings of my library photographs.

So what would be best would be if I could show you all these videos over the course of the vacation.

 Unfortunately the Internet is...

difficult to work with.

Fortunately, after repeatedly giving up, I think I have a solution! And I even kind of like it.

I put in a picture like the one below

And you

Simply click it.

And it will come to life.

Here, try this out:

I really hoped that worked for you, because that's our plan for the week ahead.

OH, but, new idea! I don't normally run repeats on clerkmanifesto, but in case the picture coming to life thing doesn't work for you, I will include an emergency blast-from-the-past genuine three star library blog post. Have fun.

I'll be off reading books and drinking cocktails.

I'll see you again when I'm back. And, through the miracle of time travel, every day until then.