#45 Revolution

Dear diary,

You know how you think you know someone and then they go and do something completely out of character and you realise you hardly know them at all? There should be a word for that. I was rummaging through the 423’s today trying to find one, but came up short. That’s a pity, because that would’ve been the perfect word to describe today.

This past week things have been going from bad to worse. The library is slowly turning into a business rather than a service. There have been increases in costs for printing, photocopying, memberships, requests and public computers. Fines are now double what they used to be, and new fines are being introduced. The other day I saw Goldie reluctantly taking money from a patron because they’d returned a book with a dog-eared page and a handful of post-it notes being used as page markers, because apparently now that counts as Damage to Library Items.

But the worst thing is that the lesser-used collections are being ‘relocated’ to make room for other services which make more money. The first collection to be attacked has bee the NEL collection. According to our statistics, books in other languages have a lower borrowing history than books from any other collection. When I arrived today I noticed that Japanese and French had already gone, and that Arabic was looking set to follow. The NEL collection had been weeded down to just over half of what it had originally been.

I found Bron sitting quietly at her desk in the staffroom. She was looking wistfully at a picture of her son, Bronson, which was stuck to the side of her computer. I saw that there was a stack of Greek novels in her bin, recently weeded. I know how much she hates seeing books be destroyed, even those in bad condition.

Talia walked into the office and I went over to say hi. We both walked Bron stand up and walk into Viktor’s office. It looked so ordinary we paid it little attention. As we chatted I noticed that the voices coming from Viktor’s office were getting louder and more heated. Talia and I listened to the conversation between Viktor and Bron rise into an argument. She waved a weeded German autobiography, Mein Kampf, in his face. Probably drawing upon the similarities, I joked to Talia.

And then Bron drew back her fist and king-hit Viktor. He toppled back into his chair and lurched onto the desk, out cold. Bron dusted her hands and walked back into the rest of the staffroom. Talia started a one-woman round of applause. I was too shocked to move. I mean, had that really just happened? Bron? Really?

Viktor came to ten minutes later, but by then Bron had already left the building. That was at 11am. By 12:30 a crowd had formed out the front of the library, led by Bron. There were a lot of pickets and banners and angry shouts, in a number of languages. Bron whipped out a megaphone and addressed the amassing group of protesters. She publicly shamed Viktor and BiblioTech, and demanded the Council intervene and reclaim the library.

The police came and led the protesters away shortly after, although from the expressions of their faces I could see that many from the police force were of the same opinion about the library. Bron didn’t return to work, but later in the afternoon I was walking past the carrels when I saw her on the other side of the window, sticking pamphlets to it about public rallies against the BiblioTech Corp. She was dressed in camouflage gear and wore a fluoro bandana. When she noticed me she waved cheerily. I couldn’t believe this was the same quiet, middle-aged librarian I’d been working earlier this morning.

I guess it’s situations like this which can bring out a lot in people. Huh.

-Jay