#63 Monday

Dear diary,

Welcome to the first day of Library Week! I can hardly believe it’s finally come. I’ve been waiting for this week to come for months now, especially today. Because this was my day to shine!

Months ago we – the library staff – all sat around and divvied up who does what when for Library Week in a rigorous paper-scissors-rock competition. Goldie and I got to share today, as we both had new things to showcase to the public. She is in charge of new books, whilst I keep the library up-to-date with the latest technology, mainly from BiblioTech. We would have to showcase both our displays of new stuff on the same day. We laughed at the time, thinking it would be a bit of friendly competition: the 55 year old choir-singing grandmother versus the 22 year old techno-geek. We didn’t know it then, but it was on.

This morning Goldie and I arrived an hour early so we could set up our respective displays. We arrive at the same time (I took her favourite car park), got out of our cars almost at the same time (she opened the passenger side of her car, the door jarring my way so I had to clamber out past the thorny hedge), entered the building at around the same time (she beat me there and tried to slam the door in my face) and got to our desks at roughly the same time (I accidentally shoved her into the Sequestered Stacks and unintentionally locked the door on her).

That set the scene for the rest of the morning. We competed for space, for display cabinets, for access to the Minties jar, for everything. I borrowed and conveniently lost her whiteboard marker; she emptied my display trolley into the returns chute. I was midway through making a thinly veiled threat about how she wouldn’t want anything to happen to those beautiful little kittens that live in her desk drawer when Boudecia appeared next to us. She made us go to separate ends of the library to host our displays, no questions, no remarks. We sullenly agreed and went off to complete our masterpieces.

The second the library boom gates opened, the place was full of people wanting to see what we had on show. I was so busy that I never actually saw how popular Goldie’s display was and nor did she see mine, so our wager was forgotten. All day I stood around explaining what each of the various new BiblioTech products did and how they have been integrated into the library.

The central display was the Library Utility Belt Equipment, which was positioned around the aforementioned belt which had the unfortunate acronym emblazoned on it. The belt and its equipment was created to replace a lot of the older and clunkier BiblioTech equipment, such as the Shelving & In-house Robot (S.I.R.), which is currently dismantled and tucked away in a cupboard in the Children’s Section, The L.U.B.E. is designed to hold several specialised shelving assistance items so that you’ll never be without. For example:

KneeSliders™ are pads you can put on the knees of your pants so the don’t wear when you shelve; they have the added benefit of allowing you to be able to kneel down and glide along carpeted areas. WrapJackets™ are book covers which not only protect books from damage, they also automatically straighten the cover and pages. The DeObstacliser™ is a wonderful little tool like a cross between tongs and an extender arm, which you use to shove other books, or even patrons, out of the way to recover books from those hard-to-reach places.

However, my favourite piece of equipment by far is the ReShelve™, the most advanced BiblioTech device by a long shot. You program in a returned item’s call number and the approximate coordinates of its destination and BAM! The device returns it to where it belongs. The ReShelve™ does this by extrapolating temporal energies of the ex libris and reboots its internal memory encoding with orientations of prior universal expositions. In other words, it sends the book back to where it used to be by looking at its past. In even simpler terms, it’s basically a handheld time machine.

I was very careful not to let get too close to the ReShelve™. It’s … my precious. As I was giving a demonstration of how the SuperScanner™ not only checks library cards but can also determine whether someone is trying to sign up with a fake ID, I noticed a suspicious character hovering around the ReShelve™ display cabinet. I couldn’t quite pick what it was that made me suspicious of him, except that he kept glancing downwards whenever he spotted me watching him watching the device. That, and he was wearing a long flowing black robe with a golden X symbol on the front and back. He just stood out, I guess.

Anyway, the day went great, though exhausting. Who knew talking at people all day could be so tiring? I’d better get some sleep and recharge, as we’ve got a busy schedule this week. Don’t miss out!

-Jay