#67 Friday

Dear diary,

Every morning at 8:30 all morning staff have to do shelf-reading for half an hour, before the library opens. Making sure books are in the correct order is normally not the most exciting task, and I can easily see how many people would be bored out of their skull after less than five minutes of it, but I’ve always managed to keep my mind occupied whilst my hands work their magic across those tiers. I got into work today to find Heb and TJ slumped against the shelves, both clearly asleep on the job. I tutted to myself. I whipped out the ReShelve™ and calibrated the settings to ESBs (Existing Shelved Books). I set the Dewey range, made sure I activated No Friendly Fire (slows do the process but avoids temporal collisions) and hit Enter.

The whirring sound the handheld time machine emitted lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough to instantly wake up both the guys. They stared in sluggish wonderment as the ReShelve™ fired up. Books all around began flitting out f existence, only to reappear in their correct location moments later. One folio vanished from TJ’s hand, freaking him out no end. I explained to Heb and TJ that the device had a recording of the relative position of where the book belonged when the device was programmed, and it used that geo-temporal postioning to return the books to where the used to be. It could also find lost books hidden under shelves and restore them to their rightful place. This took fifteen seconds to explain, and by this time the ReShelve™ had finished its job.

Suddenly all the lights went out, throwing the sections of te library away from natural lighting into pitch darkness. Ah, I said, there’s one small catch: it uses a lot of energy. Bron and Ernesto came out of the staffroom, carrying chairs for their event today. They sighed in unison and asked us to help them take the rest of the chairs up to the front area of the library. Heb and TJ trunched over as I checked how much power the ReShelve™ had used. It was a lot. It looked like we’d be without power for the rest of the day.

Bron opened the library roller door at 9:00. She met people as they entered, conversing politely with everyone and ushering them to the seats set up around the front area. Even people who had just wanted to browse through the collections were drawn into conversation with Bron and before they knew it they were sitting down and actually looking forward to the speeches. Bron’s gentle nature and her uncanny ability to find common ground with everyone meant that there was not a single complaint about the lack of proper lighting. In fact I overheard two elderly men saying how much nicer it was without the harsh luminescent glare of the ceiling lights. Amazing, how some people can make the best of any situation.

When everyone was seated Ernesto took to the podium. The microphone had been taken out by the ReShelve™ surge of ’09, and so he had to speak loudly to be heard. He quietened everyone as only a librarian can, then spoke briefly about the importance of Library (and Information) Week in emphasising the role that libraries play in the community. The crowd applauded, and he passed the mike (metaphorically, alas) to the Council Mayor, Cr Phil Turdwater. I was expecting a generic ‘it’s wonderful to see you all here and thank you for coming’ kind of speech that politicians seem to make at community events, but again Phil surprised me by speaking about his own experiences of loving his local library when he was a young boy. I really have to get over my dislike of politicians.

After Phil there were speeches by representatives from BiblioTech and from the Library (and Information) Week events team. I tuned them out and scanned the crowd for any attractive young female bibliophiles. I quit my search the moment I saw a black-robed character at the back of the crowd. I moved quietly behind the crowd – moving silently is part of our shelver training – and came up behind the cloaked figure. I was tempted to unhood them and find out once and for all who this mysterious trouble-maker was, but then I noticed a roll of paper sticking out from their pocket.

I removed it carefully so as not to disturb them. Hey, if they can play with my technology I’m rightfully entitled to nick their stuff. I stepped back and unrolled the paper. It was a labeled diagram of the library. Why would anyone carry that around with them? They certainly weren’t an architect. I rolled up the blueprints and was about to replace them, but then decided against it. Something conspiratorial was going on, and I was going to get to the bottom of it. I shimmied back to the staffroom and tucked the blueprints into my bag. This was homework. This … is personal.

-Jay