King of the Library: The fifteenth decree

 

I am slightly taken aback that it has been almost two years since I last wrote a new "King of the Library" decree.

As a refresher, these decrees are where I am in an imagined library, probably one somewhat like my own (but I'm adaptable), and there I hold a Kingly power to change any part of its operation or design through kingly decrees. These decrees can be mundane (we clean our own toilets), dramatic (we redecorate the entire library on a yearly basis according to grand or whimsical themes), democratic (everybody shelves), and rebellious (a secret pirate library of illegal and stolen work). I could pontificate on the virtue of me being given unbridled power to make these silly, revolutionary, and or whimsical policies, but that's not what we're here for.

We're here for a treat!

And by treat, I mean a new decree, the fifteenth decree!

The library shall open a high quality espresso bar operated by staff and...

wait for it...

charge nothing!

What?!!?

Won't that be expensive? You ask.

Maybe. I don't object to a jar on the counter for donations to 'support your library espresso bar'. I also see keeping a high quality, but very narrow menu- maybe organic espresso, one organic dairy, one non dairy milk, a few organic loose leaf teas, and that's it. Also we will keep costs down slightly by keeping to the spirit of the thing and providing absolutely nothing "To go", thus preventing abuse of the system.

Further prepared for the question of cost, probably because this issue is what, as a proper American, first sprang into my mind, I mapped out some rough costs. Without going into detail, I decided that a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year should be able to handle our provisions for this project.

"A hundred and twenty thousand dollars!" You cry out. 

Why, that is the cost of the annual salary of a County higher level manager!

I'm glad we were able to so easily resolve the issue of cost.

And beyond firing a higher level manager, which I believe can be done on a near random basis, the whole thing is pretty simple. Any properly trained staff can put in a shift at the espresso bar as they like, which may offer a pleasant alteration from normal library duties (or, honestly, might just be more of the same). The drink list can be ironed out, but I see no sugar anywhere, just Tea, herbal tea, espresso, and cappuccino. Anyone is welcome to a drink without question. And... that's it.

It doesn't have to be that complicated. It simply needs to be freakishly generous and humane for pretty much any public Institution in the world. Which is what libraries kind of already are. And so, as King, I propose building on that.

The drinks are on the house!

And so it is decreed, this day, etc. etc.,

The King

King of the Library: The 14th decree

 

Over the vast eons of clerkmanifesto I have dreamed of a great library where I am King. And as King, in this fantasy, I have piece by piece built a library as I think it should be, all through the use of decrees, kingly decrees, written here, whenever I am seized by a vision of this ideal library. 

These decrees are whimsical, innovative, rebellious, practical, fun, revolutionary, efficient, generous, and silly, all in their turn. So far there have been 12 of these decrees. No public library has yet contacted me to say:

Dear Mr. Calypso:

We have read with interest your innovative series "If I Were King of the Library", and we were fascinated. Our small library system would like to offer you a five year appointment to run our library entirely as you see fit. We feel that you could make our library a beacon in the world of libraries, or at least a laboratory for new ideas that could invigorate both our small community and the wider community as well.

We hope that you will be interested in this unique opportunity and look forward to discussing this compelling project with you.

The trustees of the Camden Public Library

Shakespeare once wrote:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Which I bring up here because it says, in effect, that my genius is wildly underappreciated precisely because people are absolute morons!

Oops. I think I've digressed.

Because my real point is that I soldier on, crafting this dream library despite the fact that it is just we few people musing over it while the rest of the world slumbers.

And so we come to today's decree, the thirteenth. It is a very simple one, largely economic in nature, and it is inspired by two basic things.

The first is a quote I read only this morning by Bertrand Russell:

Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacturing of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way, it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?

The second inspiration for today's simple, but dramatic quality of life decree is based on my longstanding belief is that pretty much everyone in any library (and in most work settings) only does effective work 50% of the time at best, a point I have made thoroughly in the history of this blog and so will not rehash here. To put it simply: The pins we're making these days in America are at least twice as easy to make as they once were.

And that is why my 13th Decree is this:

Everyone working at the library shall be paid twice as much per hour, and everyone's hours shall be cut in half.

And so it is decreed on this day etc. etc., by the King.

What you get for virtue

It has long been a feature of libraries that one is financially punished for transgressions. The most legendary of all these punishments is known as "The late fine". But let me ask you this: why don't you get anything nice for doing things right?

They say that virtue is its own award. And I think...

What? They don't? Are you sure? Cause I'm almost pos...

Well, it's definitely one of those "...ward" words. I know that. Yes, it could be "reward", but it may also be "coward" or, possibly "toward". Virtue is toward. Well maybe it's not toward. Wait, I know:

Virtue is a sword!

Actually, I think it's more like a butter knife. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

No, I agree. We should move along.

"Okay," Hypothetical person asks "If we give fines out for being late, what kind of rewards can we give to people for just doing things properly?"

I have an idea!

Everybody gets a nickel credit on their account for every item returned on time! It's not redeemable for cash, but only against any charges on one's record.

As so often happens in my life you are probably thinking "That's mildly clever." While I am thinking " I am a genius!"

Oddly enough it turns out that I am right this time while you have understated it. I can even explain.

There are currently two serious issues at the forefront of library culture.

One is the trend away from late fees. More and more systems feel fines more adversely affect children, the poor, and the under privileged in the community. More and more systems are exploring the elimination of some or nearly all fines. And good for them. There is a downside to this and that is that people waiting in line for popular items may wait for what seems like forever while someone keeps their item illegally without repercussions!

The other trend is that, while libraries tend to be broadening their services, they are still faced with relentlessly declining circulation numbers. These are bread and butter numbers for selling their budgets to County Boards, cities, and sometimes states.

Under my carrot and the stick solution we solve both of these fundamental problems. Any family besieged by late fines can fix their problems without spending money, merely by checking out more items. Nevertheless, because people value their resources, even if it be a credit on their account, they will have an incentive to return items in a timely matter, an incentive other than virtue being its own stupid reward. Meanwhile people will, as they ever do, screw up constantly, and, owing us tons of money, be forced to check out hundreds of extra materials they don't want. 

Thus:

1. Rich people continue to buy themselves out of fines, providing us with some revenue.

2. Poor people and cheap people check out more things to pay off their fines, making our circulation numbers soar, and securing our budget sources.

3. The underprivileged become trapped in a library cycle of checkouts, fines, more checkouts to pay fines. This leads to them reading and becoming increasingly enlightened. Which inevitably leads to the overthrow of the oligarchy, Capitalism, and the class system.

At which point we'd have to revamp our library fine system once again.

Which I'm sure we'll be able to handle.

King of the library: The 13th decree

 


In my magnum opus, or rather in one of the legendary 18 magnum opera contained in this sprawling blog, I have been building a dream library, the library as I think it should be, a library system of which I am King! Decree by decree I have been slowly building this ideal of a library. I am moving along without urgency because, well, it's all just a dream, all just a wild, hopeless, fanciful dream...

But dreams aren't for defeat and despair, they're for inspiration! So I have two new decrees as King of the library. One decree will likely be unpopular among my co-workers and one will be popular, thus I am presenting them paired for balance. I am also splitting them over the course of two days because, well, there are a lot of calendar days out there to fill with blog posts every year.

Yesterday we presented the 11th decree in which we cleaned our own bathrooms (and buildings). Having put our own house (library) in order, and accumulated a bit of extra savings, we are ready to launch our most ambitious project yet!


The 12th decree: We shall establish a new branch library... in Tuscany!!!!!


Well, it doesn't have to be Tuscany per se. It could be in Paris, or Rome, or sure, Florence, which is in Tuscany. In fact let's just call it Florence. We'll establish it in Florence. Me and my wife will go check out the lay of the land for us in a few months.

And why not have one of our library branches in a popular tourist destination and a treasured historical city? Such a library can be a destination location while simultaneously being a nice representation of our culture, different than chain fast food restaurants, selfie snapping tourists, and embassies stocked with corrupt political donors. Most of all it can be a useful resource. We can buy some modest and slightly run down palazzo, work up a few rooms to house the library staff. Stock it with an exhaustive and interesting collection of local travel and history materials and an eclectic array of vacation reading, have some decent seating, Internet, helpful staff, and, most valuable of all, excellent bathrooms.

Questions:


Who will be welcome?

Everyone! It's a library!


Can anyone get a library card?

Sure, Italians, Chinese, Minnesotans, whatever. Some kind of ID would be good though.


Who will staff it?

Just our regular staff, transplanted for three month stints, with a free small apartment connected to the complex. You might want to put your name in right now as the line might get long.


This suggests a kind of hegemonic spread of libraries. Are you hoping libraries will take over the world?

Yes.




And so it is decreed, this day, etc. etc.,

The King

King of the library: The 12th decree

In my magnum opus, or rather in one of the legendary 12 magnum opera contained in this sprawling blog, I have been building a dream library, the library as I think it should be, a library system of which I am King! Decree by decree I have been slowly building this ideal of a library. I am moving along without urgency because, well, it's all just a dream, all just a hopeless, wild, fanciful dream...

But dreams aren't for defeat and despair, they're for inspiration! So I have two new decrees as King of the library. One decree will likely be unpopular among my co-workers and one will be popular, thus I am presenting them paired for balance. I am also splitting them over the course of two days because, well, there are a lot of calendar days out there to fill with blog posts every year.

We will start today with the more dirt-under-the-fingernails decree, the 12th decree. The dirt-under-the-fingernails thing will only become less appealing when you learn what this decree actually is. But please keep in mind that this decree, while still essential, is designed to give gravity and justification to the wonders and heavy expenses that await us in decree 13.


The 11th decree is: 

We can clean our own damn bathrooms!


Inspired by a criminally incompetent County and Library system that actually outsources janitorial services, something I despise so deeply I can't discuss it civilly, I have decided to go as far as possible in the opposite direction: 

The regular library staff can clean the building themselves! 

But it's not all bad news workers, so read on with the provisos below:



1.  Assigned on a weekly rota, for that week janitorially assigned workers will only work on building maintenance and cleaning and are exempted (and actually excluded) from all other duties.

2. For a modest percentage cut in pay employees may opt out of cleaning duties. That money will be pooled to be shared among cleaners.

3. All cleaning scheduled time is paid double, plus the proportional share of opt out money.

4. Workers work their normal hours when on janitorial duty, except they clean and stuff, and get paid more.





I guess that's about it. So, why all this you ask? What's the point? 

The point is that we can clean our own damn bathrooms, that's the point. And even with the doubled wages it'll probably still cost less. Which is good, because I am spending all that tomorrow on decree 12. 

And so it is decreed this day by order of...

The King (who will also clean).

King of the library: The 11th decree

In my ten previous decrees, carefully doled out over the nearly six years of this blog so that librarians across the country could implement them thoroughly and effectively, I have not tended towards the common. My kingly decrees have been indulgent (a sushi bar), creative (theme rooms, the pirate library), and democratic (everybody shelves!). But for once I am keen on taking something common in libraries and bookstores across the country, and merely implementing it well.

In the bookstores it might be presented with a nice handwritten note under the "Employee Picks" stationary. Libraries seem to enjoy the phrase "Good books you might have missed". I prefer something a little stronger, like:

We'd stake our souls on these books, or
We adore these books, or
We'd gamble our careers on these books, or

The books we would die for.

My library has a good books you might have missed kiosk. But it is some weak sauce! Like so many collections in this post librarian era, no one is serious about it. It's a bunch of books pulled onto a cart by one person in a short amount of time. 

I am not talking about this.

I'm talking about solemn oaths.

I'm talking about raise your right hand and repeat after me crap. And if you're willing to swear your life away before god or Jane Austen or something then we will go out and buy three copies of your book for this special collection. Then we will cut your finger, and you can put your bloody fingerprint on the title page of each copy. I'm sick of libraries that don't mean anything, that have no conviction. I don't need any book recommendations based on triangulation and anemic popularity. Don't we all want to read something great?

I want to read something great.

That's all I want to read. I endure the rest, badly.

And if a bloody fingerprint is too gross for the library patrons they can go stuff themselves on James Patterson. 

But this collection was never for the likes of them anyway.

These books will be their own collection, additional to whatever there already is of them in the regular collection. There will be accouterments: A blurb written by the selector, a list of the selector's other choices, if there are any, that are also in the "books we would die for" collection, the goodreads star rating for said volume, a brief synopsis, trigger warnings, and a page for people to write their names if they feel the same way about said book. A notebook of all these books and their corresponding information will be kept for easy reference on location. And absolutely none of these books will be shelved in any kind of order.

Why?, you may ask, about the last one. Why out of order?

Because I am King! 

And so it is decreed, this day, etc. etc.

The King.

King of the library: The tenth decree

Oh if I were king of the library!

I have mused on this a few times in the course of this blog. Eight times to be precise, and you can find the links to them over on the sidebar to your right.

But inspiration has struck again, revelation, imagination, dreams, visions, longings, hallucinations, castles in the sky!

I have a decree!

The Ninth Decree:

The main room of the library shall be elaborately redecorated according to a theme every year.

I understand that this needs a little explaining.


A vast rebuild of my library was done about eight or nine years ago. It was done in the style of cutting edge minimalism, on a budget, circa 1979 Berlin (going by a photograph I saw of their library). I'm not complaining, exactly, but it's a sort of design that over a very few years becomes bland. But because it is also minimal, with a vast gray floor and even vaster, soaring, white, unadorned walls, it begs for expression.

Now let me also say that, despite this main room being a featured and even essential space for my library, this is also an almost throwaway space. It houses the front desk, several little featured kiosks of mini collections, many many Internet computers, and our vast AV collections. It is a noisier space, leading to Teens, Children's, the work room, and the coffee shop, and it is a more social space where people pass through and get things done. It is not our study spaces, our quiet spaces, our main adult book collections, or our traditional library space. It is not our essential library. It longs for fun!

We will make it fun. It will have a theme!

For our first theme we will begin with: 

A Plush English Drawing Room. 

The massive walls will be draped in great banners of rich velvet, overhung occasionally with large Manor House type oil paintings; grave portraits, hunting scenes, rustic and bucolic cows, whatever. We can throw down some shabby oriental rugs, they only have to survive a year, and then we will carefully set up little two to three people conversation areas with heavy leather arm chairs and small, richly draped tables with charming table lamps. In the evenings waitstaff from the coffee shop will take your orders for cocktails at these very tables. A large, very quiet and well-behaved mastiff will more or less live on the premises. Amid all the DVDs and CDs we can probably squeeze in some nice towering oak bookshelves full of dated, leather bound classics and loads of oddball and obscurely fascinating period ephemera.

And that's merely for year one. So if you don't like it just go upstairs and wait a few hundred days.

 Future options include a pirate ship theme, a Science Fiction Spaceship, Enchanted Gardens with a central fountain, a Traditional Japanese Tearoom, the undersea world, Mayan Civilization, and  an African Safari. The possibilities are endless, and our space, while bland and a bit formless, makes the perfect canvas.

So it shall be. And so it is decreed, this day, etc. etc.


The King.

King of the library nine

The "If I Were King of the Library" project was begun so many decades ago on this blog that some of you who only started following along with me here in the past few months or years may not be acquainted with it. Others may have forgotten about it after months of my inactivity. And still others of you may be grabbing your little computer screen, shaking it in fury, and screaming "It's about time you did another King of the Library! I have been waiting forever!"

Excuse me. I apologize. I got brain fever. While in Africa. Hunting powerful ancient relics. And, um, saving the world with magic and bravery and adventures. But I don't want to brag, or make excuses.

I do believe that on the deeply neglected (by me) sidebar of my blog (located at www.clerkmanifesto.com, where you may even now be) I still keep a set of links to my collection of "King of the Library" posts. While the title of this project is, I feel, self explanatory, I refuse to let that stop me from explaining. I will not be silenced by the mere bullying fact that nothing need be said! 

Hmm...

I will not be bullied into silence by the fact that nothing need be said.

And so "King of the Library" is a series of policy mandates, mercurial ideas, and staff perks I would institute if I were given a liege-like power over my library system. It should be noted that I have not been given this power and so my library system is nowhere near as wonderful as it could be. I haven't even been given a tiny crumb from the table of power at my library, which is why my library system is not as good as it could be. But I have, on occasion, and through a colossal amount of ingenuity, effort, craftiness, and force of will on my part, taken, no, stolen the shadow of a crumb of power at my library, which is why my library system manages to be pretty good, despite itself, at least partly.

So far my proclamations have included procedural, work related issues (everybody shelves), a host of intricate, adventurous, and involving collection development and display proclamations, and one proclamation that put a sushi bar in our break room. Today's proclamation ventures into new territory by being higher level, more boring, slightly political, and a little sad. It is sad because I shouldn't have to waste a proclamation on something like this. Once upon a time what I am making into a law was largely true in my library system. In many library systems, especially smaller ones, it probably is still mostly true.

I better tell you the proclamation.

The library shall pay no company to do its work. We employ people, never companies.

That's it. We can hire janitors, but never a janitorial service. We can sell weeded and donated books to raise money, but we never give these books to a company to sell for a share of their profits. No one chooses or processes our books for us. To every extent possible we fix our own machines, write our own software, and do our own plumbing.

In my library system, one large enough to employ well over a hundred people, the fact that we have switched to a paid janitorial service is, well, I don't want to get everyone all worked up because we will end up talking about Republicans and Nazis and the end of the world, and then there's yelling and lot's of gesticulating and rash words about the library management.

I don't want to upset anyone with rash words concerning library management. Not to mention Nazis. Not to mention Nazi Management.

So I retreat to my private fiefdom of dreams and fantasy Kingships, and I write proclamations. But I must say that when a government organization of any kind, anywhere, hires a company to do their job, or one of their jobs, they are functionally saying that they are unable to do it themselves. This is the point at which they should politely be asked to leave. I am perfectly happy to bemoan government waste. The solution to that is a lean, motivated, non hierarchical staff. It is not hiring what effectively amounts to the workers you need through intermediaries, and so also, by hiring a company, hiring a second set of managers, second payroll, a second human resources department, and one new Capitalist boss whose job it is to extract profit out of it all for himself.

Oops. We weren't going to do this with all the gesticulating. We're just here to issue a proclamation. 

We're a library. We are a do it yourself operation. That is our law. Also I'm king. I don't have to tremble with righteous outrage when I can stamp out this nonsense with a stroke of my pen. It's no good for our kingly back to fret. I can make the library as I see fit. And I would like to extend this passion against privatization as far as possible. Yes, we'll have to buy books from publishers, but even there we have made a previous decree, the fourth decree that involved adding local, unpublished items to our collection. Can we make our own furniture? I don't know, but it's on the table. Hmm. And when it comes to software and e-book collections we should be working with libraries across the country cooperatively to build, open source, the programs we need, tailored to us and flexible.

Once again we are back to a common theme here. There is real value in the homemade and the bespoke in a library. That value will come through to the patrons, to the engagement of the employees and volunteers, and to the health of the community.

And so it is decreed, this day, etc. etc.

Feldenstein Calypso, King of the Library 

If I were King of the library, the eighth decree

I can't even remember when my last episode of "If I were King of the library" was or what lovely idea was its subject. I can only eeyorishly be sure that no matter how excellent the idea actually was, no library on the face of the earth has instituted it. That's okay, because when I am made King of the library and all my carefully crafted, brilliant, mad, and dangerous schemes are ferociously enacted, they will all rue the day.

"Who are they?" You ask.

Them. I need say no more. Except maybe that it should be "Who is they?" if you know what I mean, which you probably don't, which is an occupational hazard of reading my work, which is what you are doing now.

Anyway, my new decree for King of the library again plays off the idea of the library within a library. Even normal, large libraries tend to work that way. This library within a library is called

The Pirate Library.

Sorry toucan lovers, not the "Arrggh, matey" Pirates. I mean it in the sense of an unsanctioned, illegal, stolen, and morally unsanctioned library. The pirate library will be full of purloined and hijacked items, first run movies made from peoples' smart phone recordings, the galleys of upcoming novels hacked from publisher computers, government secrets, and bootlegged recordings. The pirate library will be constantly on the move throughout the vanilla library, hidden in the "P's" of the romance section one day and on impromptu shelves back by the magazines the next. It will be run by a librarian with a faked degree who is paid under the table out of a hidden library slush fund. This is the sort of librarian who will accept bribes and command a small fervent team devoted to a frightening vision of unfettered information owned by no one. No one will admit directly to the existence of this library, and we shall disclaim all knowledge of and all responsibility for it.

Why such a library?

You with the questions all the time! Ah, but don't worry, we rejoice in you.

Libraries, for all their many virtues, suffer constantly from an institutional bias. They bog down in their systems. They play nice with publishers, media empires, and culture itself. They are polite denizens of the local government. Libraries are brilliant in their virtuousness and are one of the few institutions that can express the dream of what we might be while hiding in plain sight. But they do become a bit stolid in their goodness and fair play. They occasionally become confused about their fundamental rebellion. They strive sometimes to be more like what's around them instead of more like themselves. They get a little predictable. The pirate library is the seed of wildness and the radicalized core at the heart of the library, unrealistic in its extremism, but fundamental even as it can't be named or adopted officially.

The pirate library is the hidden engine, the secret fire that powers all libraries, and when I am king of the library it shall have its proper place.

So it is decreed, this day, etc. etc.

Age and Elvis

Biking into the University I looked right in preparation for a complicated street crossing. I saw a man driving a slightly battered black car. He was very heavy set, corpulent even, and sunk so low in the driver's seat that I wondered if the original bucket seat had worn away and been replaced with an old, legless easy chair. The man had big sideburns, wide, dark sunglasses, was smoking a cigarette, and possessed something I can only describe as presence.

He looked exactly like Elvis. Exactly.

"Oh my god!" I thought. "It's Elvis!"

But my place in time corrected me. This man was at most in his late forties. I did a brief, rough calculation and thought "If Elvis were alive today, he'd be dead."

If I were King of the library: The Seventh Decree

It has been a long time since I did one of these Dr. Seuss "If I ran the Library" sorts of posts, but for the past few weeks I have been thinking about them again. I felt maybe it was time for something new in my little dream library, my fiefdom, but what? Then, this morning, in my role as supply procurer, I received a library catalog supplement, and on the cover was my answer. There, featured, was an old fashioned book pocket with checkout card, and a date/month stamp.
 
The Retro Library!

The Retro Library shall be gloriously, nostalgically analog! It will be its own discreet section of the library, cataloged purely in a beautiful, burnished antique wooden card catalog system. There will be hand checkouts only, in some arcane system we'll need some old person to explain to us. There shall be no computers, blocked WiFi, check your cell phone at the door, and, here's the kicker: no books constructed later than 1970 will be allowed. This means the librarians will have to be creative, passionate about collection, and fanatic, inspired book collectors (set them loose with a reasonable budget on the struggling, non chain used book stores in town. No, they cannot order online!). Those among my readers who are not library workers and not strongly acquainted with libraries will no doubt say "That is the simplest thing in the world! Surely that would easily describe the skills, ambitions, and talents of every public librarian there is!" Alas, but for those of us who know, the reality is less sunny. All that being forced to walk the cruel line between popularity and quality, buying from one big vendor, having so little room to experiment, has dulled their ancient skills. Here is their chance to take it back.

And in our Retro Library we need not stop with the collection, or the cataloging, or the checkout system. Our decor, our furniture, our shelving, shall all be pre-1970. So too will our phone, which we will keep under a towel in a drawer because it's a library and we need to muffle the ringer. Our dress code shall be pre-1970 (for staff, but if patrons want to dress up, more power to them). I am willing to put on a nice, baggy brown suit to pull a stint in there. I don't know if I'm willing to shush people, but I think I can work up to that.

So there it is, our completely retro library section. Put on a derby hat or some bobby socks or something, hop on a streetcar, and come on by! But not in the evenings or weekends. We'll be going with the retro hours as well.

If I were king of the library, the 6th decree.

As King I have been revolutionary (everybody shelves), community oriented (the local library)  a defender of literature (the staff library),  a purveyor of the unusual (well, everything, but also The Useful, Strange, and Interesting Things Library), and an inspirer of the workplace (Pet projects). So if my next kingly addition or decree seems a little, um, frosting like, remember that there is plenty of good solid cake underneath (I'm not sure that analogy went the way I wanted it to, but... cake... frosting...hmm, if it can be an exceptional carrot cake, why not?). Whose frosting? Well, me and my co-workers frosting, but not frosting really, it's actually really fresh fish, because as King I am installing a sushi bar in the break room. Yes, a sushi bar.

Irresponsible you say (well, not you, more like them. You are fine. They bring up that sort of thing, and they do it like, all the time!). No no no I say to the "irresponsible" dig. Many nice tech companies have this sort of thing. The Pixar staff Cafe is supposed to be quite good and the Google Cafeteria is open pretty much all the time and is free, just for a start. Both of them are alleged to have fresh and healthful food. The twisted cultural rhetoric is that Government institutions should take inspiration from the private sector, but interestingly the inspiration they are supposed to take is usually a selection of the oxygen starving, autocratic, soulless elements of large and evil corporations. Well what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If we have to look at companies for inspiration why not look at the super nice things, if we can find them. I have found them. And I am putting in a Sushi bar!

But I am not unreasonable nor am I an imprudent spendthrift. We do hire a Sushi Chef, and maybe an apprentice sushi chef. If we have to lose a librarian and a clerk, so be it. I see a lean and engaged and intensely working staff who eats high quality Japanese food. We'll work all that out. The library sets up a good sushi bar/small kitchen area in the break room. It's on the hook for equipment, a start-up fund, and an ongoing stipend for some of the lower end basics. The fish/seaweed/other food costs are met on a pay, at cost, for what you eat basis. I am open to the idea of donations as an addition to cost coverage, and also to chef tipping. Here's some of what I'll aim for.

1. Six day coverage, some prepared food for off hours and the seventh day.
2. Yes, volunteers can eat there, as well as accompanied friends, family, guests and also off-duty staff, but eating there falls under the everybody shelves rule (see the first proclamation) so you will have to do a tithe of shelving.
3. No, it's not only sushi, but it will be healthful, moderately simple, and Japanese, and chef driven.
4. No, no cake. That was an analogy, and, interestingly, the ubiquitous celebration sheet cake so common to break rooms is the very antithesis of this endeavor.

If, like me, some little (or big) part of you thinks this is too absurd a dream for a large suburban library I think it is a reflection of how small our dreams have become in this country. We are having a sushi bar in the library!

So it is decreed, this day, etc. etc., the King.

If I Were King of the Library, The 5th Decree

I was planning for my next decree to address hiring issues, but I wanted to go with just one more little library within a library before we get to more weighty, anarchist inspired structural matters. This is my third library within the library. It follows after The Staff Picks Library (here) and The Local Library (here), and I think it's easy for me to imagine all these mini libraries because I am working in a fairly large and spread out space. But even if I were anointed King of a library of more modest size I think none of these little libraries of mine are very large, and they could all make agreeable nooks or free standing sections with small footprints. My library spends a good deal of floor space on large themed cubes that sometimes seem more impression oriented than content oriented, which is my way of saying that we made places for groups of books and now unenthusiastically fill them with stuff. So instead of having, say, a two month display of  "Biographies" or "Mysteries you might have missed that some librarian pulled off the shelves randomly" (I really wish the sign said that!) there instead would be intricate, intentional, interesting featured collections.

What I am now mandating as an addition to this will be called The Useful, Strange, and Interesting Things Library. As odd as it sounds at first this has more precedent in our nation's libraries than you might think. My system has checked out painting and sculpture reproductions in the past. AV equipment was not unheard of in the olden days. We currently check out bike locks and energy meters, and I know of libraries that will check out telescopes, dogs, tools, seeds (yes, plant them, grow them, harvest, and return new seeds at end of season!), cake pans and people (yep, it's called the living library and started in Copenhagen, it's about exposing you to different kinds of people). The only thing I don't commonly see is a tying together of a variety of these things in one place, thus my USIT Library (I made an acronym!). Here's how it will work:

1. Because this will not be a large collection we will not be unduly concerned with unconventional sizes of items. If we only have 30 or 40 or 50 things here we can handle a bike or a really nice sled or a banana tree or whatever.

2. I'm thinking something like a $25 to $350 spending range for items. I'm sure you could get a unicycle for that, or juggling clubs, or an incredibly nice piece of jewelry from etsy.

3. These are one off things and can have their own distinct checkout periods, late fees, return processes, and grouped elements.

4. This gets a committee too (like the local library did). The committee is made up of randomly chosen volunteers from staff and regular volunteers. They can buy however they want within their annual budget, majority rules. I would even encourage buying used if it helps stretch our dollars. They can also solicit donations. They are responsible for maintaining the health of the collection.

5. As this library has an actual acronym (USIT) we will be going rather more in the direction of supporting use and towards weeding unused things than we might with some of the regular collection. Nevertheless, experimentation, variety, and lower levels of technology (tech is okay, just, I want to counter it's easy appeal in this situation) are strongly encouraged in the buying process.

So it is decreed this day, etc. etc. 

The King

If I Were King of the Library, the fourth decree

Libraries within libraries within libraries. Our public libraries are already very much set up this way. We have a Children's Library and a Teen Library, and those are just the ones in their own discrete, specific rooms. We also have, for example, a wing of Non-Fiction and one of Fiction. And then within Fiction we have regular Fiction and Genre Fiction. And let's not stop there. In Genre Fiction we have Mysteries, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Romance, and the rest (the Professor and Mary Ann in this case being Westerns and Large Type. Large Type isn't much of a genre I know, but there it is). Being an extremely omnivorous reader in addition to working here I visit all these libraries within the library, but a person could easily visit our library seven days a week (and they do!) yet never set foot in Kids, or Westerns, or whatever. It's a lot of libraries. Is it too many libraries? Eh, I think no. I think let's just throw open the gates.

But now that the gates are thrown open let's think about what to add. What public libraries don't already have Kids and Mysteries and Non Fiction? We've taken care of that basic, automatic stuff. Now is the time to spread our wings. Libraries are for flying! (Well, at least once in awhile, maybe like the Spruce Goose.) My third decree got us going on one of these extra libraries, the staff curated one, where vulnerable books are protected and the collection is driven by personal staff love. Now, by Kingly decree, I open another library within a library. The Local Library.

The Local Library will be a special collection made of books and media created or produced by people of the State within which the library lies. Strong priority and preference will be given based on how close to the library the author/creator lives and/or works. No preference whatsoever, though, is to be given to professionally produced, conventionally published material over entirely unreleased and homemade material so long as the homemade material meets minimum construction and reuseability standards. I'll move to the copious fine print and details for the rest.

1. All submissions are chosen by a jury based on their subjective opinions of quality combined with the localness of the submission.

2. The jury is to be made up of six people meeting monthly. Staff and local community members are both eligible to serve on the committee. Members are chosen by lot from those volunteers and serve for one year. Jury members must recuse themselves from judging items produced by people they know.

3. Submissions are open to anyone in the state and must come in a set of five that are reasonable facsimiles of each other. They must meet minimum standards of size and durability for circulation. Selected materials will be purchased by the library in their sets of five at a price standardized by type (book, DVD, CD, etc.).

4. Each chosen item will be assigned a supporting juror who will be responsible for writing an erring on the side of honesty frontispiece note explaining why the item was chosen and just how local it is.

So it decreed, this day etc. etc.

The King

If I were King of the Library, the third decree

While I am not very qualified to speak to library collection issues I have found that qualification is not a harbinger of quality. If I rattle this around in my jar of passions for a bit I can usually find for myself enough license to talk about anything. I'm not sure that passion is any more a harbinger of quality than qualification, but if you can mix in a dram or two each of application and love, you are there, and your quality chances positively soar. So it is in this vein that I hope here to weigh in, and since I'm King, how I hope to rule too.

The problem that I find myself repeatedly slamming into around my cities various public library collections is twofold. One, I find a distinct lack of guiding passion. Loved items surely circulate thickly in the collection, but they remain unemphasized, unprotected, and undifferentiated. Two, librarians are fine when it comes to buying "New" items because every device of popularity and capitalism is geared to it. Stocking the classics is handled almost as well, especially if they are old enough and classic enough. But there is a middle ground here that I consider the soul of a library collection. It consists of half classics, lost classics, and the truly great books that 25 years or 40 years or 100 years on have been buried under the constant shower of new books. Ever so steadily, from age, wear, abandonment, and the ceaseless occlusion of new things, these simply erode out of our library systems and our cultural consciousness.

The King is here to save the soul of the library, and here is the decree to do it.

Every person who works for the library gets to choose five items of any currently circulating type, and a minimum of three copies of each of these will be kept and maintained in the collection for all time. These items will constitute a special collection all housed together, a library within the library.

There is loads of fine print and details that go with this.

1. Items are vested only among employees who have worked more than five years. If someone leaves before five years their choices are not protected and can be weeded or allowed to fade away.

2. Staff is not required to fill their quota of choices, but choices are non transferable.

3. Staff are entitled to remove their choice at any time, but not to replace it.

4. After the fifth year of employment staff is allowed one new pick at each new full year of employment.

5. All choices must be accompanied by an explanation of why the item was chosen. This will be prominently featured along with the staff member's name and the origin date of the choice.

6. Staff are urged to consider things that aren't already very safe on the regular shelves, but if they want to spend a choice on Pride and Prejudice that's up to them.

7. Staff has to formally attest to loving each item they have chosen. This will be done by signing their name to a front piece in the book that says "I affirm that I have chosen and love this book (or cd or whatever). 

So it is decreed, this day, etc. etc.

The King

If I Were King of the Library, The Second Decree

Now that the King (me) has solved the shelving issue (see the first "If I were King"), what about the fun? 

Fun goes to the passionate! Every quarter (that's 4 times a year!) we fund pet projects. Who can apply? Anyone who works there! Hell, longtime volunteers can apply too, and my blog readers! What do we fund it with? Time and money and space. Oh, then hmph, grumble, and how do we pay for this?

Aha. The king puts his money where his mouth is. All the other functions of the library are hereby stripped to the bare bones. Acquisitions are greatly reduced. Classes are reduced. Programming is reduced. The library is simplified and reduced to its basics, and everything that it loses there is filled back in by these pet projects. How do we choose these pet projects? We vote, everyone votes. Everyone has to read every proposal and everyone votes on every project. So, um, can we see an example? Yes. We will pick something simple and basic lest you think the whole thing will be too much of a carnival.

Sylvia is a kids librarian and she likes being a kids librarian, but she loves jazz. She can't stop thinking about jazz. She listens to it for hours and hours every night with her cat Thelonious. She wants a jazz corner at the library. As befits a library she believes it should be materials oriented. There will be a deep, deep master collection of CDs, the best of DVDs, books and even some long forgotten record albums. There will be a detailed and heavily stocked "Suggested" section as well. She wants a largish chunk of money and the equivalent of 2 hours a day to work on it. She also wants the maximum time for it. 2 years. After 2 years she would have to apply for some kind of renewal.

Okay, there's your example. Let's say there are not a lot of super great projects that quarter (or, heck, there are other great projects, but this one is still very popular and people trust Sylvia) and Sylvia gets fully funded. What really does the library end up with?

Instead of a mediocre CD collection (like nearly every public library I have ever been to), we get, well, a little bit more mediocre CD collection, and one, ferociously beautiful, destination Jazz collection. The kind that inspires people to explore Jazz by its own radiating conviction. We get a happy employee contributing their masterful knowledge and deep energy, and we get personality and depth. And oh yes, we wake up! I just went to three Minneapolis libraries. They were varying degrees of okay to a little bit lousy but not totally terrible. But they were mostly so absolutely asleep! The staff was asleep! The collection was asleep! The libraries were asleep. Just, wake up! Libraries can be beautiful. They can be adventures! They can be quiet and studious and calm and keenly awake. Yes, yes, they can be partly responsive to simple popularity, they should be, responsive to their statistical measures and the pull, and even the wonders of Big Media, but they can also be personally curated. Museums of art. Places of personal conviction and insider knowledge, of mercurial and fierce fandom!, where items are part of the collection because someone in the system unreservedly believes in it. Places where the forgotten that should not be forgotten is held on to, and places where the luminous depths of our culture can emerge out of the flotsam and resolve itself into the amazed and enlightened hands of its constituents. We need only be awake, and free, and care.

I can think of 20 more examples beyond Sylvia's Jazz without effort. And though tempted to run on endlessly with my visions I believe, reluctantly, especially reluctantly if I get to be King, in Democracy. So I think you should think of some of your own simple or mad ideas. I think you could, if you let yourself. Leave them here with me. When I am King we'll see about getting them funded. I think your project will win the votes necessary to get you going on your mad or simple dream, and our library will be magic.

So it is decreed, this day, etc. etc.

The King.

If I Were King of the Library!

I like the sound of this title. This could be a handsome new series of blog posts. If I were king of the library indeed! I'm all for it. But, as befits a series, instead of getting all sweeping and exhaustive, I start out with one modest, well, almost modest, kingly decree, perhaps a bit mundane, but perhaps a bit foundational as well.

Here is my decree: 

Every employee in the building shall shelve materials for one hour every day they work.

Kings, Pages, Librarians, Board Members, Custodians, Computer Operators, Clerks, and Regional Managers all. It shall be the tithe and the fundament. So it is decreed this date etc. etc.

Here is the fine print and details:

1. This is prorated at a rate of 8 hours scheduled to 1 hour shelving. If, for instance, you work a 4 hour shift your shelving tithe will be 30 minutes. There is a minimum though of 15 minutes shelving, so if you are only coming to the building for an hour long managerial meeting make sure you still set aside 15 minutes extra for your shelving.

2. If you are physically unable to shelve you will work from a provided short list of mundane yet useful alternates.

3. No bartering away your shelving. This is soul work too.

4. If there is nothing left to shelve (something that never happens here, but could under this system) dig deeper. There are always things to shelve and a back up of shelving-like activities will be available if there really is nothing. However, on mornings where we are strongly caught up, the King, or a licensed associate, may declare a "Shelving Holiday" where all are released from the usual responsibilities of shelving for that day.

5. Shelving time is real time. Breaks taken during shelving do not count towards shelving.


Why I think this is an important and good idea: 

I don't have to say, for I am King!

Okay. I will say. It breaks down the overwrought hierarchy that I feel is slow poison to the system. It puts everyone in touch with the building and the collection. It's better socialism and Libraries are, well, Socialist, except with a King! And finally, most simply, many hands make light work.

So it is decreed again, this date, etc. etc.

-The King