#68 Saturday

Dear diary,

Today was Shannon’s day to run stuff for Library Week. She organised to have a history tour of the library, in dedication to library staff past and present, as well as the history of the building itself. She had local historian Sue Tonius research and create a presentation about the origins of the land on which the library stands. Despite my own enthusiasm – I have a great passion for libraries which sadly isn’t shared by many members of the public, or even the staff – Shannon Harper didn’t believe this would attract crowds, so she asked her father for help.

Colin Harper (a.k.a. Bookman) was the former Head Librarian at this library. He died several years ago, and like all library staff who have fallen in the line of duty, he came back as a ghost. He and the other ghosts live in (or ‘haunt’) the Sequestered Stacks at the back of the staffroom, and rarely venture out from there. Today, though, they thought they’d make an exception. After all, a history lesson has more punch when advertised as a ghost tour.

Shannon showed a group of savvy patrons around the various sections of the library, telling them as they went about the people who used to work in and visit the library, and what gruesome or scandalous things had happened to them. She exaggerated wherever she could, and in fact seemed to derive pleasure out of watching her captivated audience squirm with each new shocking ‘fact’. For their part the ghosts were excellent. Shelves rattled at opportune moments, trolleys wheeled themselves, feint music could be heard and the distance (Heb recorded his mum singing in the shower that morning, and so Bookman carried around an iPod wth the recording, playing it from shelves behind the group).

Local historian Sue Tonius had done some research on the history of the library, which was left mostly abandoned by the mesmerised tour group. I myself was avoiding the dully and verbose essay Sue had written up until Bookman appeared beside me, having just petrified the group with a haunting refrain from Bron’s Greatest Hits. He was trying to tell me something, but unlike in the story of Lassie I just wasn’t getting the message. Frustrated, he flew off into Fiction and after a moment hurled a few books at my feet. I went to pick them up, then remembering how ghosts communicate, I checked the spine labels.

JAY CHE KIT OUT DAD ISP LAY

Oh dear, I thought, text speak has infiltrated all levels of society. I was about to chastise his poor spelling when several more tomes flew at my head. Reading these made more sense.

EMB LEM OND MON KYU HAV SEE NIS IND ERE

My curiosity peaked, I walked over to Sue’s essay and flicked through. Realising this could take all day even with my fast reading pace, I whipped out the BlurbMaker™, one of my previewed devices. This gives a summary of a book or even a chapter, so you can quickly decide whether something is worth reading. I found what I was looking for, sped read over it and gasped. I glanced around furtively then stole away to the staffroom, research essay in hand.

I made up some story to Shannon about having to stay back late, as she was meant to be the last to leave, and I’m still at the library now. I’ve been reading Sue’s research over and over, and it’s becoming clearer each time. The library has been around for 55 years, but originally this building (pre-renovated days) was a church. Looking back further, it turns out that church used to be a monastery belonging to an orthodox sect known as the Heralds of the Sacred Text. The HOST were monks who believed that the Bible itself held immense power, and stove to collect as many copies as possible in an effort to store and contain this power. The monks wore black robes with a golden cross on them.

It explains why I’ve been seeing monks around, but it doesn’t make sense of why they’ve been interfering with and coveting BiblioTechnology, or why they have plans of the building layout. I’m going to stay here tonight and work on this, with Bookman and Boudecia (she’s currently in her owl cage preening her feathers). Tomorrow’s the big day with the end of Library Week party. All staff are going to be busy, and seeing as the monks are showing a lot of activity at the moment, my guess is that if they’re going to do anything ‘big’ it will be then.. I just hope I can work out what that might be and prepare for it before I fall asleep.

*yawn*

-Jay