Library Tales: The Fall of an Avalanche in the Public Sector

I've been working at a public library for nearly two years now (after being at university libraries for the previous six) and have seen two council budgets come and go. On both occasions the head of the council department that (currently) includes libraries voluntarily offered to; in the first instance, close all libraries except one, and at the second time of asking, close a third of all libraries (which included the single library from the previous year's budget proposal).

Both times, the council railed against what a disaster this would be for the local residents and how vital libraries were for the most disadvantaged in our community. Both times, the entire proposal relating to libraries was wiped away, but I don't feel any more secure in my job for all that.

This is because I know that next year a similar or worse proposal will be made, then there will be the same managerial crocodile tears and claims that "they didn't want to do it" and when it goes to the council, the same performative outrage will be rolled out, script no doubt written by the same people who 'reluctantly' put the service forward to face the cuts and then we are all meant to celebrate after being spared for another year.

However, perhaps you are thinking "what's the worry? No jobs have been lost, no customer is without service, it's only the threat of removal." Well, that's the thing, for those at higher levels in the council there is really very little threat to their livelihoods, they are not facing wage cuts (but they should be), they are not facing an increased work load while other departments and roles are 'phased' into nothingness, and more importantly they already know the priorities of the council and what is actually at threat of closure and thus have the time to plan. They have the time to consider their situation, weigh up prospects, look elsewhere and if needed move to another post. While, for those at a lower level in the council, they get their 'news' for the local press or more likely from grapevine gossip, only 10% of which is likely to be remotely close to the true and the majority of which will be fear mongering and only manages to make the workplace more stressful and uncertain.

Let's end with a story...

Once upon a time.

High in the snowy mountains there is a small group of people responsible for watching for avalanches, being so high up they can see them happening and can even predict where the next avalanche will be going and can therefore make sure to move out of the way in time. However, despite this it is widely acknowledged as a dangerous job and they are duly rewarded both in prestige and in gold.

Whereas down deep in the valleys, where the workers toil, the echoes of an impending avalanche terrifies the inhabitants of all the nearby villages, but they can never tell until it's too late whether the avalanche will come crashing down their valley, or their neighbours, or whether it might even crash harmlessly into the river.

Still, all the people say that surely the guardians of the avalanches, who return each spring to the valleys to received their yearly praise for saving (most of) the villagers from an icy death, are not the ones who are actually starting the avalanches? But the thoughts continue to bother the villagers, might the guardians merely gathering the praise for something that they themselves created? No one in the villages really believes the guardians would do this, because they are good-hearted people and they know that no kind person would ever act in such a way.

And yet, despite the guardians saying every year that this would be the last time, the following year the avalanche comes again and sometimes a once beautiful little community is utterly wiped away and many 'livelihoods' are lost.

One day, a brave young woman decided to climb up into the mountains from the valleys and see for herself what exactly was going on. She was driven by the desire to know, which although a laudable goal, she should really have been driven by the desire to tell the truth. This is because when we share the truth we affect many others, when we drive toward increasing our knowledge no one else can tell us that we are wrong. Without others, without a care-for our community we are cold and alone.

And alone in the mountains our brave young woman certainly felt the cold. She missed her family's warm fire, her parent's comforting words, her siblings encouragement and her friend's laughter, but still she drove on. She wanted to see what the guardians saw.

Once she had reached the top, she had become one with the cold and she no longer thought that the villagers needed to know. Indeed, it would only further worry them to know all the details. As such, she was welcomed into the guardians and did not return down the mountain for many years.

Her parents were always proud of her and despite the yearly terror, their village was never crushed and they liked to think that this was because their daughter was watching out for them. That spring, who returned with the guardians? Their daughter! They were so proud to see her, pointing her out to all their friends. They even believed her when she told everyone in the village that there would be no more avalanches in this valley for at least three years, maybe even never again!

But next year, the deep distant rumbling started again and the village fell into a panic. "Don't worry!" The girl's parents said, "it won't be us, our daughter promised last year that we'd all be safe." So, when the command came, from a different guardian, that all the villages should clear out of their homes from this valley 'just in case' the parents scoffed and stayed at home.

All their friends and neighbours tried to convince them to leave, but they wouldn't hear it. Their daughter had said so and they weren't going to move because there was no need. So they stayed.

When, months later, the scavengers dug through the icy wastes, that was once a thriving village, they found them. Faces frozen into beneficent smiles.

The End.

Turner (1810) The Fall of an Avalanche in the Grisons

Library Tales: Book curse

“For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand & rend him. Let him be struck with palsy & all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain crying aloud for mercy, & let there be no surcease to his agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, & when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him for ever.”

- from the library of the monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona

It appears that some people have always taken libraries as a free book shop. I'd imagine that these threats of damnation did about as much good as our threats of fines to students. At one point a student was not allowed to graduate until they had paid all of their library fines, which became a motivating factor, however, one clever law student pointed out this was actually illegal and most institutions stopped enforcing this. Still, most libraries would be wise to not let this fact be well known.

Library Tales: Dedication VIII

To Elektra and Maria in the hope that they will

             excuse my prolonged self-absorption.

[Profiting without producing by Costas Lapavitsas]

To everyone who helped me find my way back.
[Interconnecting Cisco Network devices, Part 2 by Joe Tiso]


To Ann
Your goodness has made many things possible
and everything worthwhile.
[Bad men do what good men dream by Robert I. Simon]


To Nina, born into a world full of technology, which still
needs magic and dreams. May they all come true.
[Successful Web Marketing for the Tourism and Leisure Sectors by Susan Briggs]


To Dick Cropp, the ultimate tour guide of life. I couldn't
have made it this far without your leadership.
Rick
To Rick's father, Dick Cropp. You guided him well and I thank you.

Barbara

For Dick Bellamy, who puts up with my erratic schedule,
reminds me to eat when I'm working late, and is always
willing to bring me a cup of tea and oatmeal cookies.
Susan
[Start and run a profitable tour guiding business by B. Braidwood, S.M. Boyce, and R. Cropp - please, no d*ck jokes - cgm]


To Ruth and Alex, who often wondered why their holidays
took them within range of so many local libraries.
[Scotland for the holidays by Alastair J. Durie]


To the Barkers, of Fields Farm, Coningsby, Lincolnshire,
for their generosity in allowing me to experience the pleasure
of holidays on a real farm for many years
To the Springetts for their own little bit of New Zealand rurality
To Julie for what we share away from urban life, and to Schaapie my
friend and colleague
Finally, this work is dedicated to The Archers, for many urbanites the only
contact which they have with rural life
[Tourism and Recreation in Rural Areas edited by Richard Butler et al]


To the wandering islands
and one of the best ones 
[Tourism and Politics by Colin Michael Hall]
[Note: C. Michael Hall, dedicates other books to 'the Wandering Islands']
[These?]


For Ithiel de Sola Pool (1917-1984),
who saw it all coming
[Old Media New Media by Wilson Dizard, jr.]


To my parents, John and Nancy Fennell
for inspiring me to live your philosophy of 'roots and wings'
'Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
therefore, we are saved by love.' (Reinhold Niebuhr)
[Tourism Ethics by David A. Fennell]


To that sense of pace and past
and that landscape of colours
which remains Ellen Vannin.
[Tourism and Heritage Attractions by Richard Prentice]
['Ellan Vannin' is the Isle of Man in Manx]


x

This might be my last 'dedications' for a while, because although I quite enjoy collecting them. They are starting to get a little repetitive. Look, I get it! If I wrote a book I'd dedicate it to my loved ones too, but an academic textbook? Or worse, no dedication at all. That's just lazy. I might try and think of something to at least make the list-making aspect slightly more interesting, perhaps a spreadsheet? Gosh, do we librarians love a spreadsheet! That or images, perhaps blurry photos will increase the wow factor? Divisive political views? I could just slip them in... smash the system. Either way, now I've just withdrawn (withdrew?) the entirety of the former tourism section (did you guess?) and all the new term's books have arrived, they might be a short lull anyway. Good reading!

Library Tales: Dedications VII

I've decided to included the book title and author after each dedication now (although I've already lost the first one) as it's almost always the first thing anyone asks about the dedication...

- - -

To the Gang
Bear, Bunny, Cow, Bear 2, Polar Bear, the Baby Bears, polar Bear Gone to Paris, Malinda, Elise, and all of the others (including Valerie and Christine, of course)

To Elaine
who has put up with my being digital for exactly 11111 years
[Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte]

To two individuals who have provided
comfort and solace in difficult times
and added to our pleasure in the good times -
Jim Beam and Johnnie Walker
[Epidemiology by David L. Streiner and Geoffrey R. Norman]

- - -

A small break, a change in location, institutions, job title and pay grade (fortunately for the better)
And now, the dedications continue...

- - -

The Laughing Buddha

Beside the pond in our garden is a statuette of a laughing Buddha. He stands with arm stretched upwards in joyous celebration. Except one arm is broken, the missing piece resting on the ground next to his feet. When the accident happened, I asked my husband to stick the piece back on. Noticing that the repair went undone for some considerable period of time, I enquired as to whether there was a problem. 'I quite  like it like that', was the response. Over time I have come to agree with him. The wounded laughing Buddha speaks of joy reaching through pain, of severed connections nevertheless sustained. It has more to say than the perfect model.
[Negotiating death in contemporary health and social care by Margaret Holloway]

For Deneige (at 30) and Andrew
and Jeremy (at 28) and Alison.
May you continue to retain your illusion of control.
[Anxiety and its disorders by David H. Barlow]

To the wonderful old times, and to an exciting future.
[Contemporary Intellectual Property]

For our families (undefined).
[Cohabitation]

'Look,' Aileen said. 'Forget Prozac. Forget Freud's abandonment of the seduction theory. Forget Jeffrey Masson - or is it Jackie Mason? The only thing that is going to revolutionize this profession is Bidding the Job.'
'I specialise in Christmas,' said the psychotherapist, a man named Sydney Poe, who wore an argyle sweater vest, shiny black oxfords, and no socks. 'Christmas specials. You feel better by Christmas or your last sessions free.'
'I like the sound of that,' said Aileen. It was already December the first. 'I like the sound of that a lot.'

(Lorrie Moore, 'Birds of America')

[Short-Term Psychotherapy by Alex Coren]

Library Tales: Interestingly Titled III

How to lie with Statistics

Are Women Human?

Can Asians Think?

You Tarzan and Me Jane

Quack, quack, quack: The sellers of nostrums

Hitchhiker's guide to internal medicine

Bloody Nasty People: The Rise of Britain's Far Right

What Color is the Sacred?

Let Them Eat Junk: How Capitalism Creates Hunger and Obesity

Apes & Ape Lore

Some Day Your Witch Will Come



Honourable mention and new subset, 'interestingly authored':
Hanging In Judgment by Harry Potter

Library Tales: Dedications VI

Special love and thanks to

Anita, Erica, and Geoff

for supporting me and my passion.

Special thanks to God for my many blessings.

"There but for the grace of God go I."

To my wife, without whom this would have
been impossible, and to the future without
which it would have been unnecessary.

To Bob Edwards and Joe Herbert
who first stimulated our interest
in the science of reproduction

Dark mysteries are here - old pathways, secret places
Under the tangled cortex, grown snugly thick now:
Intricately synapsed: electrode-proof

To:
Truth

For Kathryn,
who thinks I can do no wrong,
and Barbara,
who knows better
and loves me anyway

To the memory of my uncle
Neil Norme, who through his
example taught me the honor
and pleasure of work. He was
a calm and purposeful man.
Steady.

This book is dedicated to you.

To 
those with
'a poet's feeling or a painter's eye'
this book is
DEDICATED

To our wives Barbara and Edna, without whose whining nagging for more

money we might long ago abandoned this painful project;

To our numerous children, whose incessant bickering and generally atrocious

behavior drive us to spend  many long hours at the office, working on the book

as the lesser of evils;

To our students, who, with malicious glee, found the many errors in earlier

versions and did the dirty work of indexing, checking references, and so on,

knowing that a degree and a decent recommendation would have been impossible otherwise;

To our many colleagues who were generous with suggestions - but who asked

them? Any failings or errors now present in the book are undoubtedly the result

of their unsolicited advice and meddlesome tampering. We accept absolutely no

responsibility for errors in this book;

And finally, to our tipysts, whose dedic ated efforts, careful attentiun to de&ail,

and skillful w*rk transmuted a rougf ilegible swrawl int0 a finished boo$.

This book is dedicated to
Starla Kay Jacobs
My Wife, and Companion for Life
Through beauty, elegance, wit, humor, and semi-infinite patience, she has
made this book possible. Furthermore, while I was attempting to coordinate the
efforts of 33 authors in five different countries, she would often remind
me, with a twinkle in her eye, that whether the task is writing a book, doing
research in the lab, or painting the house, "if it's not one thing, it's another."
Paul Francis Jacobs
La Crescenta, California
[Final proof that Engineers write the sappiest dedications]

To all those engineers who have contributed to exciting projects that have 
failed on the market

Library Tales: Dedications V

To Ronald and Jennifer,

my son and daughter,

cited in order of age,

not any discrimination of sex.

For Julie,

who makes the sun shine,

and for

Rhian and Patricia,

who do the same for my sons.

[despite being amused by son/suns, it's also an extraordinarily sapping dedication 

for a book about System Dynamic Modelling]

"If we investigate our ideas, we have
to be willing to give them up."
                                           Gordon Hewitt, PhD
                                                          Wellington

In all the world, few indeed are those who have a clear 
insight into both mathematical analysis and how it does, 
and does not, fit physical phenomena.
[Wind Turbine Engineering Design by David M. Eggleston]


To the memory of Jubalani Nobleman Nxumalo 
('Comrade Mzala') who would have liked bits 
of this book but disapproved of others

[Not a dedication but worth a mention. Hand-written under the main title on the inside cover of The Rootes Brothers]
This book is full of mistakes
                                         ABPM

This book is dedicated to all the middle-class
workers who toil every day in manufacturing.
[But NOT the working-class. F*ck those guys]

This book is dedicated to my wife, without whom it could not have been

written. The dedication poem below is written in a mixture of Buchan

Claik (Buchan dialect) and Lallans (Lowland Scots), as befits a marriage

between a husband from Edinburgh, but of Glaswegian ubringing, and

a wife from Aberdeen. In Buchan Claik loons (m) and quines (f) are

marriageable young people.

My Bucksburn Quine

O Mary, it's lang syne we click'd,
While touching over teacups,
I tak't ye fae a jilted loon,
Sair sick doon in his stommick.

My Bucksburn quine had black dark hair,
That spark'd a'twixt the bed sheets,
Glintin' the way tae lovers rites,
That spritely gint the hert leap.

The potter's clay from high she thumps,
Upon the caring plaster,
Wi' micht an main, tae get it richt,
Tae form, and fire, and gloster.

My Buchan quine, ma ain guidwife,
In the game o'life, a winner,
O'er wrongs and rights, and deil made plights,
That yowt the heid's wee spinner.
A doughty fechter in the fight,
Wi' posture, and good balance,
An' shak', will she, the hand o' God,
When life's brief flash is darkened.

Our bairns, and bairns's bairns are fair,
A trace we'll leave behind us,
Meantime the bonds o'blood is there,
That joins and keeps and twines us.

A fortun'd, fair starred man am I,
Health's, wealth beyond conception,
And love thy neighbour as they self,
Preculdes the deil's pre-emption.
[Fuel Cells, Engines and Hydrogen by Frederick J. Barclay]

Library Tales: Dedications IV

Back again...
Only a few this time as I've been stuck working with some quite dull books (or quite dull authors who don't write interesting dedications). So, these are mostly quite old ones from earlier this summer.

Dedicated to the memory of Obie, our wonderful dog, who

passed away as this edition was completed. She affected

many of our most important decisions.

To 
Gloria and Danny
who know a lot about values without thinking about them at all

To an obstacle that became
an opportunity
S N O W
[???]

To
The noble quest for those elusive goals -
Knowledge, Peace and Justice

For Sarah
who has accomplished much more than she is
willing to admit

To Neil, who became
a scuba diver, juggler, and logician
all while I was working
on this one book

To the three ladies of my life
and the laughing gull

To my old pals,
"Bill," "Bert," and "Alf."
Who have sat in the mud with me

Love is life's wonder!
I dedicate this book to Jean
[In a book about electromagnetics]

For Reggie
who is almost always right

Library Tales: Observations II

The irony that the book 'Successful Dissertations and Theses' was greasy.

I've seen my first students wearing jeggings in the library. This is not a good thing.

If you're going to make the effort to come into the library for 9am, I'd suggest you don't bother spending all your time; listening to music, watching videos, texting and chatting with your friends. My advice, just stay in bed a little longer next time.

Calling your book 'A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about ... x' or 'Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics : (and sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll)' doesn't make you sound fun or witty, it just makes you an arse.

On discovering the book 'Globalization and Cultural Trends in China' by Liu Kang, I wondered what books other computer games characters might write...

Liu Kang, Academic

Liu Kang, Shaolin Monk

Library Tales: Interestingly titled II

The Dumbest Generation: How the digital age stupefies young Americans and jeopardizes our future (or, don't trust anyone under 30)

A History of Orgies by Burgo Partridge

Amazons and Military Maids: Woman who dressed as men in pursuit of life, liberty and happiness

How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians

Cocaine Fiends and Reefer Madness: An Illustrated History of Drugs in the Movies

An Anglo-Norman rhymed Apocalypse: With commentary [followed by a dissertation on the seven deadly sins]

The Antichrist's Lewd Hat

We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: Stories from Rwanda

Against the Grain: An Autobiography by Boris Yeltsin
The Irony! I thought he was very much for 'The Grain'

Library Tales: Observations I

When students attempt to hide books - that is, when they deliberately secrete a pile of un-checked-out books in a place that only they know so that they alone can gain repeated use of said books - it is mostly found to be Law or Business students (or Law and Business text books at any rate) that are the perpetrators. What are we to make of this?

The messiest book shelves - that is, kind-hearted students have made something like an attempt to return the item to the shelf, but instead have dumped them near but not near enough to were they actually should be. It's a benign dumping, rather than actively trying to stop people use books they want, they stop everyone, including themselves - are almost always to found wherever there are science and medical students. Mathematics students seem to find the classification system especially impossible to follow, maybe it's just too simple?

Some helpful students like to write notes on the frontispiece of books, "this one's good!" or "what a load of rubbish!" or point out good work by the author "good start!" sometimes they like to leave hand-written notes, "Recommended Reading." How sweet.

It is a  Japanese superstition that when one sneezes it means you are being talked about by someone. Since starting work at the library it seems I've become a regular topic of conversations...

The worst part of the job, taking books off the shelf. Not even to be cleaned or repaired, but simply packed up and sent away. First to an external store and then probable shredding. That I was 'weeding' philosophy books only compounded my ill feeling.

Library Tales: Dedications III

As you might have noticed I only choose the interesting dedications for my collection. 

It's fair to say that I ignore a great deal and they tend to go in this order of appearance: 

Mum and Dad, children, husband or wife or significant other, dead people, people related to the author's subject (for the children!), people working in the same field as the author, famous people the author hopes will be pleased by their dedication.

Also, this is the last 'Dedications' for a while as I've moved to different project work and won't have the opportunity to inspect books.

To Mary Alison, John David, and Timothy

for Whom This Anthology Is Written

and Who Will Soon Judge Its Merits

For my mother, Phyllis Katz,
who gave me humor,
and my father, Arthur Katz,
who taught me to sing without words.

To the millions of poverty-stricken children in this country whose voice is too
amorphous and diffused to be heard by the powers-that-be!

To our parents,
To our children
And to Le Petit Prince
Who helped us understand so much

To the pioneers,
listeners and dreamers of dreams,
all of them.

A tous ceux et toutes celles pour qui la ville
et les quartiers populaires sont une promesse.

For Steve, my valkkaittunai
Finnish 'life's help'

For the men of my family:
my father, Nelson; my brother, Ronald;
and my husband, Ronald Nelson

I dedicate this book
with profound affection and gratitude
to the Sanchez family,
whose identity must remain anonymous

Dedicated to bisexual people everywhere -
Come out, come out. wherever you are,
It is our time to dance!

to partiality, irony, intimacy and perversity

For Ian, with love
and the hope that boys and girls of your generation
will grow up to enjoy a safer, saner, more loving,
and more fulfilling sexuality

To Bob and Lorraine
for the gift and luxury of 'imagination'

The little god of Love is generally represented as 
a child; and rightly perhaps, considering the erratic
character of his ways among the human race. There
are signs, however, of a new order in the relations of the
Sexes; and the following papers are, among other
things, an attempt to indicate the inner laws which,
rather than the outer, may guide Love when - some
say - he shall have come to his full estate

Library Tales: Dedications II

A few more dedications:

To the memory of Dobrila Koliba,

who took my advice, and died because of it.

For my wife Chris with love and thanks
for putting up with me for 45 years

To Tom, Maya, and Gemma,
All good-citizens-to-be, and of some just state, I trust
With love from Popi

To Zina 'A.Z.'
(and to five years of inter-species affinity)

For SOPHIA
May your star always shine brightly

For all TANU women, and
For my mother, Susan Geiger, whose
"When will you finish that book?" kept me going, and
For Janet Spector, who never doubted that I would.
(That's Tanganyika African National Union, if you didn't know)

To the memory of my mother, from whom I inherited my passion for books
and my indignation at the injustices of this life. To the memory of my father,
from whom I inherited my fascination for science and my curiosity about this
extraordinary world.

This book is dedicated to my wife, Joanna A. Mauer,
and daughter, Brooke Laffan Ciraldo.
Joanna and Brook, in turn, rededicate it to Barry,
beloved late husband and father.
"Barry Laffan died suddenly after a two year long illness before this book was published"


For Chris
a simple twist of fate

For Ned, who somehow succeeded in growing up through all this
and for all those who didn't

Library Tales: Interestingly Titled I

Here are just a few of the more interestingly titled books I've come across recently.

The Industrial Vagina : the political economy of the global sex trade

Thinking Like a Communist

When Skateboards Will Be Free : my reluctant political childhood 

More, Bacon, Neville
Showing the importance of punctuation, which I cannot help but read as, More bacon, Neville!

A dog's history of America : how our best friend explored, conquered, and settled a continent

Housewife or harlot : the place of women in French society 1870-1940

Stiffed : the betrayal of modern man

Life is not complete without shopping

Sexed Pistols : The gendered impacts of small arms & light weapons

The Communist Controversy in Washing [sic]
 Due to a damaged cover this title has occurred, it should read Washington, but some things are better by accident

Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches : the riddles of culture

The True History of Chocolate

Mao's War Against Nature

Honourable mention goes to : The Male Body by Susan Bordo that should probably come under a new category 'cover stories'. The book's spine is an eight inch ruler.

Library Tales: Dedications I

Here are some of the more interesting dedications I've come across recently, can you tell I've been working on mostly politics books?

To Linda, Fred, Peter,

and the little pink rabbit

For David and Edward
(from Marxism and Politics by Ralph Miliband)

To Joe,
who was born on Marx's birthday.

To
ALL MY STUDENTS,
PAST AND PRESENT
(Not overly well received by undergraduate graffiti'ers, e.g. "patronising git!")

To David, Daniel, and Carola,
that they may grow up in a more democratic
and, therefore, more peaceful world
(Written 1959, now seems hopelessly naive)

For David, my hero
(Me too although I suspect their's was a different David.)

For 1st Lt. George B (Tinker) Pearson, III (1941 - 1966)
Who believed in the American Dream and died for it in Vietnam

For Robert Dahl and Karl Deutsh
who care about science
and about people
(Really! You can do both?!)

To Bunny

To my grandfathers,
who both were colonels in the Soviet Army,
To  my father,
Captain of the First Rank ( Ret. ),
To my brother,
Captain in the Russian Army,
And to my son,
who will - I hope - choose a different career

To Marion, for her 'generosity of spirit'
(Blimey! Euphamism or scare quotes?)