Obnoxious Librarian from Hades (2 page)

It is a bright Thursday afternoon in the library and I am humming the famous Warrior Librarian theme (“When your catalogue is a mess / when all your patrons are in stress / if your books are overdue / and you don’t know what to do / Warrior librarian will come to the rescue / with her mighty cataloguing skills / etc etc).

Following the announcement that McQuinsey consultants would “help” us be more cost effective, our management has been at a luxurious resort to strategically align the foundations for a synergy roadmap. Or something meaningless to that effect. From that two-day session, a “vision” has been developed (probably during the break on the last day, just before the final round of golf) to inspire the mere mortals on the work floor.

As I report into the IT organization, the vice president of Information, Communication and Collaboration has drawn up a vision for the library. It is now up to me and my “cost effectiveness coach” from McQuinsey to turn this vision into practical plans. Please note that those sessions will be held in the temporary meeting rooms in the basement of the almost obsolete facilities building on site. Which is undergoing a major renovation. Has no airco. No windows.

Below some inspiring excerpts from the vision for the library, which shall be renamed to the “Centre for Ubiquitous Content and Knowledge for Organizational Objectives” (CUCKOO for short).

“CUCKOO shall be recognized as a fundamental element supporting Hades’ mission-critical activities: ….. As such, CUCKOO aspires to achieve deliver top quartile, KPI driven services, supported by highly responsive customer service.”

“We also recognize that all aspects of the organization will be influenced by CUCKOO as it will be interwoven across our organizational fabric.”

“At the heart of CUCKOO’s mission is the support for the economic development, which is substantially improved by a competitive workforce that effectively accesses and applies information to meet the challenges of a rapidly evolving world.”

Alrighty then. As Sue, my passive aggressive assistant would say: “…eh, what”? Which pretty much sums up my feelings as well.

Sue has been here since Hades Corp was formed many eons ago and cannot get excited about anything anymore. Being a low level employee, Sue has made herself irreplaceable by keeping secret files of every Hades manager since they joined us as young, energetic and excited cannon fodder. Her nickname is the untouchable. I have no clue what she does all day except for printing out web pages, as she is convinced the Internet will collapse soon. She will then whip out her offline version of the Internet, cross-referenced in her oversized Rolodex and charge us to use it.

I think I will bring Sue to the meeting with the McQuinsey consultant next week, as I am sure they will have lively discussions without making any progress.

It is Friday morning and I am not in the library enjoying my morning tea whilst browsing library gossip forums. No, I am stuck in a meeting room with my manager and Bruce Tyler, the McQuinsey cost-effectiveness guru.

My manager obviously is smitten with Bruce’s ability to spout management mumbo jumbo, which makes my b.s. radar go off within a few minutes.

Bruce smiles when he opens his laptop to start his presentation: “Well, let me start by saying how delighted I am to work with an esteemed team like this to bring cost effectiveness to the next level by combining radical new ideas with bleeding edge technology and “right sourced” for an optimal balance between shareholder ROI and customer focus”. He didn’t even blink an eye or breathe during that blurb, which makes me wonder whether he is a cyborg. And did I see my manager start to drool?

Bruce smiles at me like a cobra that is going to hypnotize a mouse, so I quickly mumble a prayer to Ranganathan (the saint for librarians).

“Your manager and I have had several inspiring conversations about the future of the department and came up with out of the box ideas for cost effectiveness. Based on my extensive experience in this area and your managers’ insight, I am sure we have wonderful solutions to talk about. I’d like to present our ideas to you and then have your open and honest feedback. Getting a mutual buy in is essential to embed cost effectiveness in our hearts and minds.”

“Our first idea was to abolish a central collection of books and journals and use the peer-to-peer model. So rather than having a central repository, items would be with a staff member who uses it and then is passed on when requested by someone else.”

(Well, that would be a quick way to ruin a library collection, let the patients run the asylum).

“The following idea may sound too radical for you as a librarian – but let’s keep an open mind and let try to visualize the potential of this: instead of subscribing to many different databases and journals, let’s use the synergy of wisdom of crowds combined with the power of the social network. Hades employs many different unique individuals who all have a pool of knowledge and a wide network. This is a unique, unrivalled, untapped potential which we can leverage to answer any question in our company”.

(Ok, let’s replace authoritative information sources with what a friend of a colleague says, based on a blog he read last week).

“And lastly, but surely one of my favorites which was brilliantly suggested by your manager – we all want all our information online, at our fingertips. So instead of a slow migration towards a complete e-library by acquiring licenses with different publishers – let´s make a big bang. Let’s ship the whole book collection of to our business partner in India where everything will be scanned and wiki’d.”

(Hey, we haven’t been sued for copyright violation yet – let’s make sure we will be the poster child for copyright violation!)”

Bruce smiles and looks at me as if I am a walking reduction target. But he surely hasn’t expected to deal with the force of the obnoxious librarian. “Bruce, before we go into detail of the different ideas – I was just wondering… how did your great advice help your previous customers like Enron and WorldCom? And would you care to explain to me how ethical it is that you are a major shareholder in the Indian business partner, which you recommend?”

Bruce’s phone starts ringing at the exact moment my boss turns to him with a bewildered look on his face. As the look on Bruce’s face turns from a smirk to sheer horror, he quickly leaves the room while talking loudly on the phone. My manager runs after him, so I guess the meeting is adjourned.

It is a gloomy Wednesday morning in the library and I am just about to recategorize all my desktop items in a more feng shui manner. Seems like putting the trash-can icon right next to the library catalog icon gives off bad vibes to all new catalog records. But before I can bring back harmony to my desktop and continue to enjoy my new Eva Cassidy CD, Sue (my passive aggressive assistant) hands me the phone: "The CEO's secretary for you".

Ah, that is the type of calls I always enjoy, as much as you can enjoy a verbal torture. The CEO's secretary is a woman who obviously has been instructed to keep the CEO as far removed from employees or decisions. Either that, or she just likes demeaning people.

Let me put it this way: I once needed to get the CEO's approval for a very large project proposal, so I wanted to make an appointment. The secretary asked me to explain it to her, and I hadn't uttered two sentences when she interrupted me: "and is there a point you are trying to make?” I quickly swallowed some rude remarks that came up, and I cut right to the chase about the decision I wanted to put to the CEO. She sighed deeply, looked at me wearily and said, "You people really can't make any decisions yourself, can you?”

So with that in mind I took the call:

"Hi, how can I help the CEO today?"

"Listen up: you have ruined the intranet. The new navigation confuses the CEO. So undo all the changes right away."

"Well, we just finished a three month intranet improvement, where we worked with focus groups to improve navigation, the search engine and the lay out. All the focus groups agree that the new improvements are helping to use the intranet better."

"Why wasn't I involved to represent the CEO's wishes?"

"You were invited several times but replied, and I quote 'I have no time for this type of details, shouldn't we outsource this anyway'"

"I don't recall that. And by the way, the CEO really does not like the use of an owl as the intranet mascot. He prefers to use a unicorn."

(Now she is getting on my nerves but luckily I have a flash of brilliantness)

"Mmmmm… the owl hasn't been the intranet mascot since February 2003. I am just checking the log files here, and it seems like that was the last time the CEO or you have accessed the intranet."

"Your systems are obviously full of mistakes, which doesn’t surprise me, as you can also never find my documents. I insist you fix the intranet as we just discussed and demonstrate it to me later this afternoon "

Ok, now I have had it. The reason why we can't find her documents is because she refuses to put them in the document management system. She only stores documents on her local hard drive, never makes backups and then blames us when she has deleted an important document. But this is going too far, so with a grin on my face I start to work on my cunning plan.

[Later that day]

As colonel John “Hannibal” Smith once said: “I love it when a plan comes together”. The CEO’s secretary is delighted: the whole intranet is changed as she, sorry, the CEO would like to see it. I even changed the font and background color especially on her request. Little does she know that I have redirected her browser for the intranet to a locally stored set of web pages. Every link to another page will show an error: “the web server is being serviced, check back in 15 minutes”. Her attention span is 5 minutes maximum, so most likely she will not be waiting for that.

And while I was at her computer, I changed the settings of her Microsoft Office to save directly to a workspace in the document management system.

Last night a sales manager from a potential new vendor took me out for a dinner to discuss potential opportunities (i.e. another shot at a big year end bonus). He said he'd take me to a restaurant that would be perfect for me. He was so wrong.

The restaurant had books as the central theme, but for me it was like being in a nightmare. Books are my friends. Books have feelings. Books should be cherished.

Books should NOT BE USED as pillars between tables by driving a metal stake through a column of books from the ceiling to the floor.

Books should also NOT BE USED as a nice way to hide the restaurant bill in by cutting out a section of all pages of the book.

And the one thing in this restaurant that almost made me shriek out of frustration: I was facing a wall of the restaurant filled with bookshelves. ALL the books were in total random order. Fiction mixed with non-fiction. Different languages mixed. No classification whatsoever.

It took me a while to calm down when I was home that evening. I had to reread three chapters of "The history and origins of cataloguing" before the shudders were gone. You bet that vendor will be on the blacklist.

It is Monday afternoon, just after lunch and I am catching up on the latest library 2.0 jargon to mix with some new budget proposals. All of a sudden, my boss pops in with a big smile on his face: “Have I got news for you!”

My boss waves with a fancy letter in his hand and sits down: “Did you know J.M. Byron is about to retire and make a huge donation to the IT department?”

“J.M. Byron – he must be like what, 85?"

“He'll be 70 next month and now is planning to leave Hades Corporation, but he wants to leave a legacy.”

J.M. Byron for many years topped my list of customers that I could live without. Since he had been around forever, he had opinions about everything. And since he was an engineer before becoming a board member, and engineers can do everything – running a library and records department is a trivial thing. He would look for every opportunity to corner me next to the coffee machine or the copier and give his 'advice' on how he would run a much better and efficient library.

My boss taps the letter in his hand: “Seems like he wants to donate quite a sum of money to your department, which comes in handy to remodel your library and of course the offices of the senior managers.”

But you are the only senior manager in this department!

“Ah well, I have always had my eye on a nice big corner office, a big antique desk with green marble inlay and a signed picture of Bill Gates, right here.”

My librarians’ sixth sense is now picking up signals. Bad patrons never just go away. And they never go away and make life better for anyone… they use their farewell to take a final stab. And of course, I am right.

“However, J.M. Byron has one condition that must be met before he makes this donation. He seems be a real book collector and wants us to take his collection of books, which is unique in the industry. You will be so pleased to have this in your library – here, look at the list.”

I look over the list and gasp for air. The list contains every book my predecessors and I have weeded out of the collection for the past 25 years. Every time we weeded the collection, J.M. Byron would be fuming at us for daring to throw out a key book, which must be kept in the collection. Even if we argued that we already had multiple copies, the book was a very old edition or very outdated, he would be upset and accuse us of not being true librarians. He would then take all the books and leave, making us happy that we'd gotten rid of them.

Now all these books would be coming back to the library and we would be required to keep them in a specially renovated “J.M. Byron” section for at least another 25 years. Luckily, my trained cataloguers eye scans all the tiny print with the conditions and finds something interesting.

“Aaah well, too bad you didn't read this correctly – he wants the books to be stored in the room where he started out originally. And if my memory serves me right, that is currently your office… ”

So in the end we all win: I get a nice pot of money to redecorate the library, J.M. Byron's legacy is intact and my manager has his nice antique desk. Which is squeezed between four large bookcases, blocking his window and a part of his door.