Revisiting a solution to the problem of cars

 

For a short while we were revisiting old posts of clerkmanifesto once a week or so here, but I soon hit a prolific patch and our trips to the wit and wisdom of clerkmanifesto's history ceased.

But soon we will resume our revisits. 

In fact, as we launch into an extraordinarily busy month, wherein I retire from the library, and then, with my darling wife, completely dissolve our life here, get rid of virtually everything we own, flee the country to travel in Asia, and then resettle in Europe, dealing with my daily commitment to clerkmanifesto is going to get...

complicated.

But it won't stop.

It won't pause.

It will carry on!!!!

But as it carries on it may, for awhile, have a looser quality to it. It may feature random pictures, old posts, and less of a carefully introduced and explained structure. I'm thinking about how that will all work. And you will soon hear more about that. But whatever I do it will surely include pieces from my past, like this one.

As a brief introduction to this particular piece from a few years ago, I have to say that one of the serious reasons we are leaving America for France is so that we can live without a car, something perhaps too challenging to do without enormous effort and expense anywhere in this country.

"Fuck Cars"

While recently perusing the "fuckcars" subreddit, a subreddit hostile to cars and concerned at how much worse they make life for everyone, I came across a post discussing Salt Lake City's large scale reduction of speed limits to 20 MPH in order to save the life of children. As usual with this sort of positive, but almost certainly tepid and uncommitted city movement, the fuck cars subreddit (an unfortunate subreddit name, since despite the salt of its name it is about as civil as any other subreddit, which is to say not that civil) sliced and diced the Salt Lake City action with some people going along the lines of "don't let the perfect be the enemy of good", and some people claiming that without traffic calming street design this paltry speed limit reduction will be largely ineffective.

It was then that a solution hit me.

And let me just say, that for all of reddit's lack of civility, this is the kind of solution one never sees.

But I'm going to show you what a working solution looks like.

Are you ready?

Summary executions for speeding.

Summary executions for speeding!

That's right. If you go more than 20 MPH you will be pulled over and shot.

Too extreme?

Meh.

You ask:

 "Would you drive the speed limit all the time if you could be shot for exceeding it?"

No. I'm not crazy

I'd never get in a car again.

Fuck cars.

History illustrated

 

Occasionally lately I have been using the clerk manifesto time machine to visit random blog posts from the same day in the history of clerkmanifesto. But today, while I am going to be showing you a historical gem from clerkmanifesto's past, we come at it from a different angle. I have been featuring a lot of quotes in pictures here over the past week. Some of these are new and some pulled out of clerkmanifesto. So today I have the post from which I took a quote, and a new picture featuring it.

First is our new picture:

And then here is the original post from which the quote came, back on June 22, 2022. It has the appropriately apt title of "Retrospective":

I suppose everything everywhere all averages out to explain everything.

Lately I have started cruising through some of my old blog posts. Apparently I am close to having written 3,500 of them! If that doesn't seem like a lot to you I suggest going and trying to read them all. That should bring you round to it pretty darn quick!

If you did, for some odd reason, attempt to plow through all my blog posts I think you might waffle between the same two reactions that I have:

1. Wow! These are terrific. Who can explain the perfidy of the Internet!

and

2. I guess I can see what people don't see in this.

Over ten years of writing here I have worn away my caring about either of these responses, as to a nub, like the toe of a sacred statue kissed to nothing.

Bread and butter

 

I have recently resolved to occasionally share old clerkmanifesto posts from the past with you once again. This is not a punishment for your not sufficiently having studied my posts. No, mon ami, it is a reward for your years of service, reminding you of happy times in your past.

These posts from yesteryear are specifically not a best of, but rather a marker of time, always harkening back to a specific anniversary, exactly on the same date but in a different year. When a blog grows as massive as clerkmanifesto has, getting a fresh look at a randomly chosen post, places us more deeply in ourselves. And so in this spirit, I chose randomly to go back just to 2022. And there I found what I would describe as a bread and butter post. Library centered, this post is neither odd nor far afield. One might say it is kind of the spine upon which clerkmanifesto is built. Not flashy, not adventurous, not hilarious, nor daring, it is just a mildly amusing account of library life.

Whet your appetite, have I?

Well, you're already here, so you're used to this kind of thing.

Before we start I would like to note, and this will only make sense to you later, that this post slightly surprised and amused me in its accuracy, for we have but one tape measure at my library, and I think of us as having always had just one.

Measuring Tape

The branch manager of my library asked me if I could order him a 25 foot measuring tape. As I am in charge of supply ordering for our library branch, I said "Yes."

I looked on Amazon.

For less than eight dollars Amazon carried a 25 foot measuring tape that received an average of 4.8 stars.

That is an incredible deal! 

I would like to get measuring tapes for everyone! I would like to get a measuring tape for you, and you, and you, and you!

If only I could!

An aside:

I am in no way being remunerated by any measuring tape company or lobby.

All of this simply comes from my heart, or possibly from my sense of how much I think a tape measure should cost. Maybe more the second of these? Shouldn't it cost more like 12 dollars for a good quality 25 foot tape measure? I mean, is this a wildly good deal or do I have an inflated view of the value of tape measures?

So I ordered two tape measures for us at the library. This is one more than is strictly necessary. But I have found that for any tool at a library, a stapler, or scissors, or even a tape measure, one must have a minimum of two. There will always be one of them that is missing, and one that never is.

I still know what you're thinking

 

The first time, actually just last week, that I brought out one of my past blog posts that was written on exactly the same day, but in a different year, I went back to the first year of clerkmanifesto and shared the 11th birthday of one of my blogposts. But today, my second time in this venture of reposting, I decided to go back minimally, a mere two years, figuring that even my most engaged readers will have forgotten what I said two years ago as much as they, you, forgot what I said over a decade ago. And I mean this as no criticism of you. You should, for instance, see how many times I can read a book.

The answer to that is 17 times. 

Because of my capacity for forgetting, I can reread a book 16 times before I have to set it aside for the rest of my life. This means I start to get very careful about my rereading once I get to 13 or 14 read throughs. It all starts to get a little precious. But you? You will only be reading this for the second time so you are safe! You have so much enjoyable rereading of this post yet to come in your life!

When I decided to go back exactly two years I did not know what I would get, and I was slightly confused by this piece at first. Then I thought it was a pretty interesting idea about reading and writing and what is shared by the reader and writer. I think I might even change it a bit to make it clearer from the start.

I Know What You're Thinking

I know what you're thinking. Which is weird because it is my thought as well. This thought you are reading, these words, are in my mind just as they are also in yours.  I know what you're thinking because I am thinking and writing it for you.

But I don't know everything that you're thinking because while we can only really think one thing at a time, like we are thinking these words, we can also think with great speed. We can think faster and wider than words. We can think around the edges of things, and inside them as well. 

And so when we read, we think the thoughts of someone else, but our thinking is intoxicated and flooded and more elaborate than a through line of sentences. Our thoughts swirl around the narrations we think, like that line of narration is pouring off steam and light and smoke and spark, and it's running tendrils and weaving around and is surrounded by a whole forest. We may follow a path etched in words. But we're looking around and smelling and breathing and feeling the mist on our foreheads.

So I know what you're thinking, but you keep adding to it, all around it and inside it. You pack in the pauses. You put air into the slow places. You spin off in other directions.

I know what you're thinking, but I can't hold it. It flies out of my hands in every moment.

These are just the lines around its footprints.

Ghosts walk among us and angels fall from the skies

 

I have decided to sometimes include here, or feature, past posts.

I have written over 5,000 and it's not like anyone memorized them. Some of them are so old that people died with them rattling in their heads! My blog posts do not belong rattling in the empty skull cases of buried corpses!

Ah, but where do they belong? You ask.

I don't know. You tell me.

For most of clerkmanifesto I was an absolute purist. I refused imagery. I did not cut corners. I simply wrote every single day, every year, a small essay. These were humorous, ranting, silly, insightful, or even a bit slight. On occasion, I would write something so brilliant that angels would fall dead from the sky like shot birds.

A few dozen people would read those. If I was lucky, as a tiny balm to my ego someone might write and say:

"Thank you. That was really good. But the corpse of an angel has crushed a section of lilies in my garden."

Somewhere just at the start of the pandemic I took up photography which, if you are even remotely a regular visitor here, you will know has blossomed into something akin to an exotic poisonous mushroom garden. This in the form of short AI films. Sometimes, even to me, it can seem like these are the main things around here, but it is not so. Clerkmanifesto is still almost entirely about the writing.

This is no real introduction to a repeat of a post I published here exactly eleven years ago to the day. I have decided, after being inspired by something my lovely wife is doing, to take the opportunity to see where I was at in a precisely marked past. I may go one year back, or I may go, as today, eleven years back. Because this is my first venture in this project I went back as far as I could.

Then, when I went back to read this piece from so long ago, I thought:

No, I don't want to tell you.

You go ahead and think it yourself:

Fell in Love with a Painting

On Friday, I fell in love with a painting.

I will resist comparing it, which is one of my weaknesses, as in, it is the seventh greatest painting ever, by the 43rd best painter. It is better than Caspar David Friedrich, but not so good as Caravaggio. It is the best painting of Mountains ever and the eighth best nature scene. Oh Bah! I say even as I attempt to place it somehow, shout its virtues, exult, advocate, justify, explain, place, convey, elevate. 

But maybe there is no more than this: 

I love this painting. 

Well, there is always a little more.

Very early in the morning I was walking through a temporary show of Japanese Art at my local museum. I had seen the show before, but this time it was so quiet, perhaps because it was dawn, of all strange and mysterious times to be in a museum, and I had seen the painting before and liked it very much, but this time was different. This time I looked at it. And then I kept looking at it. And then I looked at it some more. And the more I looked at the painting the better the painting seemed to get, the deeper I fell into it. The more I felt the air of it, cold and clear and slightly damp. The more real became the rising mist, the splash of water, the ragged stone and everlasting cliffs, the tiny great trees standing above an abyss of a mountain gorge falling forever below. I spied the rough little houses on the brief, high mountain plateau, bordering a fierce little stream, and I saw the path that climbed out of the plateau to disappear into the mysterious passes above. I walked the path.

What is the painting? 

South Mountain in China by Fukui Kotei. Oh, you have not heard of him? You have never heard of the great, immortal Fukui Kotei? Who has not heard of Fukui Kotei!? Whose education has been so neglected? What theft of spirit and magic, inspiration and illumination has been stolen so from those not hearing of Fukui Kotei and South Mountain in China? 

Don't worry. Or worry with me, for I hadn't heard of Fukui Kotei either, and still know little about him. And here I was thinking that we had heard of everyone great, knew all their stories, had our chance at them all. But it turns out the world is nothing like that. Another surprise for us both, forgotten delights everywhere. The painting is all ink, black, with two smaller areas splashed with white, both in the places where there are waterfalls. And all of it is on gold leaf. The painting is black ink over gold, and the gold has a way of being luxurious and dazzling in that way gold has, but it also has a fabulous way of receding, becoming even more tensionless behind and in the black than all the whites we are used to in this sort of work. And so the world it creates becomes somehow more present. Once you cross the border, the plane of the painting, and enter it, you are more fully in it. You are disappeared into gold itself. The whole thing is on two, continuous, six panel screens, almost six feet high and running right to left for well over 20 feet. Would you like to see it?

So would I. But I am not in the same room as it, and so we both must be deprived of that pleasure.

Oh you, me, with our fancy looking-glass internet, our books of all the art history, all our magical photography, and all the lies that everything is known. Here is one for us. This piece cannot be photographed, or, it can be, but little will be left of it. It must be seen, in body and space, and there is nothing else for it.

In which we revisit the Lorax while suffering the ravages of Covid, and experiment with super long post titles

 

I am secretly hoping that my miserable bout of Covid is turning the corner. But I'm not sure yet. Maybe at the point when I am interested in eating anything other than passionfruit sorbet we can count an improvement. 

In that case, we are not quite there.

So I could say I am not feeling well and that's why I am showing you an old post. But that's not really it. First of all, all of this that you're reading now is new. AND THIS IS QUALITY LITERATURE! I am writing this out of my own head with all the creative labor that comes with that!

I'm not sure I believe in the idea of creative labor, but let's skip over that.

And, second of all, when I went on vacation and prepared a collection of old posts combined with new video projects, I rather liked it. Though I am occasionally prone to bits of whimsy wherein the subject of my million readers comes up, I actually have, er, I don't know? Three to 27 readers? That's my best guess.

And that is a weird amount.

But whatever is weird about that amount, and I don't know why people insist on calling it weird, it does not create the kind of constituency that keeps my back catalog in high circulation, in the way that, say, people keep trying to read Northanger Abbey. So if I'm wandering around in the vast clerkmanifesto history and come upon something that seems... appropriate, I'm no longer going to be shy about offering it up. And if any of you delightful people out there happen to read one of these old posts, feel free to comment something like:

"Oh my god! I've already read this one like a MILLION times!"

At which point I'll probably be delighted, and happy to rethink my strategy.

Anyway, today's blast from the past concerns "The Lorax". And suitably enough it dovetails with one of my many ai video projects where I run little "animated" tableaus of my favorite books. So you can click on the picture, and then come back here to read, for the millionth time, the old post below.

Among the remarkable and prescient work of Dr. Seuss nothing is quite as immortal as his nearly biblical classic The Lorax.

Or, as a regular human might put it: 

I really like The Lorax.

And it's not just for the purity and moralism of its storyline, which reaches so far into fable and fairytale that it ventures into the best of religious literature, nor is it just its astonishing politics that more than half a century later are more flatly and desperately essential than ever, but it's also in the small sweetnesses of its sketch of a storyline, the deep truth of its themes, and even in the touch of its own self chiding awareness.

But let's pull back a little.

The Lorax is a picture book, for little kids!, about a young person in something of an environmental wasteland, who is seeking the story of what happened.

Spoiler Alert!:

What happened is that Capitalism and self-justifying greed destroyed the world. 

It's a small scale post apocalyptic tale as essential and far seeing as 1984, Brave New World, or The Handmaid's Tale. only super short and, honestly, not as unnerving, which is just as well since seven year olds, its intended audience, are no more resilient now than they were when it was written. 

Anyway, a Capitalist, called The Once-ler, comes across an unspeakably beautiful forest which he then begins to cut down in order to create (and market very effectively) a clothing product, the Thneed. He, the Once-ler, is warned about the terrible damage he's doing multiple times by a hectoring mythical figure, The Lorax, who speaks for the trees and for all the animals made homeless by the relentless environmental degradation involved in the manufacture of Thneeds.

The Once-ler does not heed these warnings. Indeed his array of arguments and dismissals of the strident complaints of the Lorax are a pitch perfect representation of contemporary corporate, Republican, and Centrist Democrat ideology. It's more or less the neo-liberal playbook:

1. The Lorax is treated as annoying, moralistic, and a downer who needs to chill out. The Lorax is an SJW!

2. The Once-ler is a job creator!

3. People are crazy for Thneeds. What could be more democratic and right than providing what the people want?!

4. Obviously there are plenty of trees to go around! They're trees, for god's sake, they're everywhere!

5. If a few fish and birds have to pack it in sometimes there's just a cost that must be paid for progress.

6. The discussion is pointless anyway. The Once-ler is doing what it's his right to do; run a successful, tax-paying, people employing business.

The Lorax "speaks" for the trees, but while the very theme of The Lorax might be that seeing and speaking the truth and caring about it, is our only hope, it might be a questionable defense against Capitalism.

The end of the world is coming.

Keep a few seeds by to restart it later.

Care.

Here are a two touches I love about The Lorax:

1. The Lorax himself is not cute or eloquent or charming or smooth or persuasive. He's just this weird, small, cranky, middle-aged or older, slightly magical but not where it's important, speaker of truth. And he is naturally apoplectic to be saying "You're killing everything!" and to have the response be:

"Don't be such a nag."

and

"You've got to go along to get along."

and

"So what? Who cares anyway?"

The Lorax is Bernie Sanders, or most Americans at this moment, voting desperately for Joe Biden, or, probably, let's face it, and don't think he didn't know it, Dr. Seuss himself.

2. The Once-ler may be the ancient mariner of our story, doomed to tell the tale of his environmental crime and devastation, but he's not really reformed. Here's the telling thing about the Once-ler that I love:

 He still charges money for the story of how he broke the world in his pursuit of money!

Ha! Think of Bill Gates here, or any titan of Capitalism who retired to the lionized work of their Foundation.

And so in conclusion,

I didn't exactly notice this before, but,

wow,

The Lorax is a terrible, depressing book.

What was I thinking?

Jesus!

Terrible, terrible, bleak, miserable, depressing book.

But I guess it's good preparation for the reality of life in America. Go to it kids.

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.