by Dennie Heye
It was a very small room, cleverly hidden at the end of the archive. The room was just big enough to contain a leather chair, a small table with a record player, a small wine rack and a bookcase filled with classics in leather bound volumes. The old librarian smiled at me: “This is where I have been doing my inventory for over 30 years, the one reason that kept me sane in this organization and why I never became ill. Consider this the gift of a secret from an old librarian to a young librarian, use it as you see fit.”
So in honor of old librarians, I have continued the old tradition. Every week I go down to the basement, lock the door, play some old jazz and toast to old librarians who never shall die…
The one with half a library
It is Wednesday afternoon, 2.24 PM in the library and I am playing Pink Floyd’s “Money” in a loop. This morning all service departments were gathered in a town hall session with our managers for a “Ban out unnecessary costs” session. Yes, it was as bad as it sounds.
First we got an overview of how much money was spent on luxuries like furniture, coffee, cleaning and catering. In Hades’ constant drive to make even more money for our poor shareholders, the focus is not on selling better products or delivering better services to customers – it seems the key is in eliminating all costs. So a relentless cost cutting effort (I think it is the 6th in little over 2 years) has been launched. In the past we had to submit endless spreadsheets with all the costs and then spend many hours explaining why something was done, why it was done this way and how we already did it in the most cost efficient way (of course previous cost cutting exercises were never evaluated).
Well, actually I just created one spreadsheet with made up numbers and used that in all the projects, as every time the team composition changed anyway. And since I am the only one with access to the library back-end systems for all the numbers, it is hard to contradict me.
But this time I need to come up with something new: the assignment is to document how much we can deliver for half our budget. Then management will decide whether we can get by with half of the services or half the level of service. Perhaps half is good enough….
Of course I am fully willing to participate in any effort to help my organization cut costs. As long as it does not interfere with the library. This crazy cost-cutting idea must be killed before someone really thinks this has any future. So instead of documenting what half the library budget will deliver, I will actually start doing it. Happy to be a shining example for the rest of the organization by taking end-to-end responsibility for a true cost saving effort. I’ll bet this project will be killed before we get to lunch tomorrow.
As of tomorrow I give you “half the library”:
- The intranet will only be available every other minute;
- Every other page in newly scanned reports will be blank;
- We serve staff with names starting with A-K on Monday and Wednesday. Staff with names starting L-Z will be served on Tuesday and Thursday. On Friday we will serve staff at random (as we please);
- Links to reports and articles may or may not work depending on a daily flip of a coin;
- The automatic library door will only open for every other person on half the speed. Occasionally it may also just open halfway;
- Requests for books with an even ISBN[9] number will be served in even weeks; odd ISBN numbers will be served in the odd weeks;
- You have a chance of 1 in 2 to get through to the library by phone or e-mail;
- For every literature search request, only even or odd literature references will be delivered.
Money, its a crime
Share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today
(Pink Floyd, “Money”(c) 1973)
The one with creative copyright management
It is Tuesday morning, 11.26 AM in the library and I feel good about being a good, law abiding citizen, a rule obeying Hades employee and overall an obnoxious librarian.
Yesterday I was called into a meeting with my manager and the business opportunity consultant (I’d prefer to call him the b.s. consultant) to discuss our portfolio of electronic journals and databases. Or to be more precise: can we do more with even less money?
That seems to be the business equivalent of the philosopher's stone: how to turn inexpensive items into gold. Or at least something shiny.
I explained how we are already saving money by using economies of scale. We have centralized on several publisher e-journal packages, which in the past were many smaller licenses. This has lead to better discounts, one point of negotiation and only one invoice to manage (and monopolistic publishers only have us over a barrel once). But I should have known that it is never enough to save money until your budget is zero and I start doing my job as a volunteer (of course working for Hades is a constant cycle of joy, happiness and life enriching experiences, so why pay me?).
Well, luckily the opportunity consultant was a real expert on the topic of electronic journals and he was full of ideas:
“Using out-of-the-box thinking, industry best practices and our consultancy firm’s proprietary knowledge base, I have several great opportunities for Hades Corp. in this exciting area. Each of these opportunities is a perfect balance between value enhancement and cost saving, and of course I get paid for every stupid idea I can sell to you guys.”
Well, actually he did not say that last part. But I saw him thinking it.
I will summarize for you the wonderful opportunities presented to me in all PowerPoint glory, with the aim to reduce our spending on the e-journal portfolio:
1. Cancel all e-journal subscriptions and move completely to document delivery. All document delivery will be outsourced to a cost advantageous country. All requests will require a signed off business case by a senior manager.
(The “Let’s make it impossible” scenario)
2. Cancel all e-journal subscriptions and use the wonderful treasures of freely available information on the web.
(The “Let’s dumb down research” scenario)
3. Cancel all e-journal subscriptions and take up paper subscriptions again, this time delivering them to a Hades office in a cost advantageous country which does not acknowledge copyright. Then we can scan all journals there and store them in the corporate document management system.
(The “Copyright? What copyright?” scenario)
When opportunity 3 was presented I stood up and applauded, as I recognize a legal disaster when I see one. I thought about pretending to wipe a tear from my eye, but I was afraid that would be pushing it. With a lump in my throat I asked the consultant to send me the PowerPoint presentation of this opportunity set so I could follow up on this paradigm shifting insight.
And I did follow up. By forwarding it to the legal department of Hades. So that is why my manager and the business opportunity consultant are in a mandatory disciplinary 4 hour meeting with the corporate lawyers from HQ and I scored a brownie point with the lawyers. Lesson learned: you should always keep the lawyers on your side, even if it means sacrificing someone else.
The one where we invent money to spend money
It is Wednesday afternoon, 4.15 PM in the library and I am doing my Zen exercises as preparation for a meeting with the Software, Hardware and Infrastructure Technology International board (usually nicknamed shitty). After months of requirements gathering, market scans, stakeholder mapping, stakeholder management, stakeholder engagement, stakeholder consensus shoot-outs, requirements mapping, architecture design, architecture redesign, architecture landscape design, interface mapping, forward and backward compatibility testing, benchmarking and the usual coffee, late nights and teeth grinding I am now ready to ask final approval for the upgrade of our library and records management systems.
I pick up my binders with all the supporting documentation and head down to the conference room. The secretary of the board is outside and warns me that I am the next one on the schedu
le. The board consists of wise men and women who have been selected to veto about whether or not to authorize spending of IT related budget. The main requirement for being selected on the board is not having any practical knowledge or expertise about IT. Actually, I even think that most of the board members not even use a computer, as they have one or more secretaries for menial work. They are busy hopping from meeting room to meeting room defending their pet projects, squashing other’s pet projects, inventing new buzz words and “thinking out of the box”.
The door opens and the previous applicant for IT budget spending comes out, covered in sweat and a bewildered look in his eyes. The secretary shoves me in while quickly whispering: “They are running late, so keep it short and speak only when spoken to.” I wanted to ask whether it was safe to look the board members straight in the eye, but she had already closed the door behind me.
I sit down and face the jury.
“So, well, well, what have we here… a software upgrade for library and records management software” begins the head of finance, who acts as the chairman this time. “I did not know we needed a library, as we can find, store and file everything ourselves, I thought… but okay, I see all the boxes have been ticked for this request. So let’s get this over with. Does anybody have any objections?”
The rest of the board now starts reading the proposal, as none of them have read the required pre-reading materials (that would influence their ability for out of the box thinking).
I am crossing my fingers and hope I will get permission, as I’d like to get out of this meeting before 5 so I can get back to my desk to update my blog. But then the senior auditor says “hmmm”. I do not like “hmmm”, as usually it is followed by trouble [insert 'Jaws' theme here].
The senior auditor taps his finger on the proposal: “Hmmm, this seems to be software that can be used across the Hades corporation in every country. Chairman, if you remember, we specifically introduced a requirement that proposals for software that is to be used globally, at least 50% of the budget funding should come from a different region of our corporation to demonstrate global buy in.”
NO!
I'd like to jump over the conference table and pummel him with my first edition of the Dewey biography, but instead I sigh and address the senior auditor: “Of course I have read all the rules, but as you know there is only one library in Hades– so there can be no other regional funding from a different library.”
“Well, dear librarian, that is not my problem. A rule is a rule in my book. As an auditor I am nothing if not a stickler for rules. When we start making exceptions (he actually shudders when he utters that foul word) that will be the end of our corporate governance of which I am so proud. It is the foundation and future of this company.”
The chairman makes a note and tells me that either I come up with 50% of the funding from a different region of the Hades group of companies, or otherwise my proposal will not be approved.
Mmmm. This calls for an improvisation paradigm. I lock the door of the library, put a sign on the door “closed for quarterly Z39.50[10] architecture quality control” and put on my headphones. As always, the serene sounds of Spinal Tap's classic album “Break like wind” bring me into the right theta state. Brain wave builds upon brain wave as I suddenly find the right eureka moment.
I pick up the phone and quickly dial the number of my buddy Melvin in Kuala Lumpur. He manages the farm of servers that run all of Hades´ critical applications. His real ambition is to build the world's largest collection of Manga comics, so I have used my powerful library network to get him obscure Manga comics. In return, he hosts the library and records management system on one of the mega servers, guaranteeing me perfect service and total up time.
`Library dude, long time no speak – how's life?”
“Melvin, my friend, I need a favor, a suit is blocking my plan to upgrade my systems. I need 25 grand from you.”
“Wow, hey, you know you are on my special list, but I don't have spare budget I can give you.”
“Well, Melvin – I know that. Corporate politics is just a game, so let's just play a little game of Monopoly to beat the suits at their game of tic-tac-toe. I have a budget of 50.000 dollars for this software upgrade, but I need 25.000 of that to come from a different region. You have never invoiced me for hosting my library and records management software, right?”
“No, of course not, you're a pal and your systems don't consume any CPU power or bandwidth worth charging you.”
“That is very nice of you, but don't you think that after all these years an invoice for your service is overdue? An invoice of say, 25.000 dollars? I will pay you for that long outstanding invoice and then you can fund half of my systems upgrade.”
“Librarian – you've got them checkmate!”
And we go back to our normal scheduled plan of world domination…
The one with a special price for a special customer
It is Friday morning, 11.25 PM in the library and I reminisce about my job. Sometimes people will ask me: what is it that drives you in your job? What makes you wake up every morning and immediately feel empowered, energized and challenged to go to your desk for another day at the grind?
And my answer is always: the library customers. For them I constantly update policies to make life more difficult, make systems more complex, install yet another layer of bureaucracy and in general make them work for me.
Customers– they provide me with so much entertainment, like little busy ants in ant farm. Once in a while you shake their world and enjoy seeing them scramble around. No, if it were not for the library customers I would seriously consider moving to a job in finance as they have customer disengagement down to an art.
Just the other day, a customer called me while I was just in the middle of reading the wanted ads in “Library cataloguing monthly”. I looked at the phone display and noticed it was one of the new hires, who just started this month. It is very important to manage their expectations as otherwise they keep bugging me:
“Library”
“Hi, this is James from account development. I would like to request access to the confidential reports collection.”
“James, did you fill out the form on our intranet?”
“Well, ehm, I could not find it….”
“It is very easy. Go to the front page. Click global services. Select your business area. Enter your location code. Click the little small, blinking, moving dot in the bottom left hand corner of the screen, just below the edge of your browser window.”
“Oh, ok, but I need access today as I need to analyze a bunch of reports for a meeting tomorrow.”
“James, first of all you did not use the magic word “please”. Secondly, the service level agreement clearly stipulates that every request for access to the confidential reports will be handled within 3 working days. That is, if you filled out the form correctly, otherwise it will be ignored without warning.”
“But.. but…”
“But James, I understand your situation. You’re young. You’re new. You need to deliver to crawl up the corporate ladder. So you need a better service than the normal service – you want the Very Important Customer service with dedicated expert librarian support and guaranteed turn around time.”
”YES!”
“ Ok James, now we are talking. Let me see what the special price would be for you… mmmm…. Skip the form and handle the request by phone, that would be 2 extra large boxes of Oreos. Skip required permission procedure, that’s either washing my car or cleaning my windows at home. Immediate authorization of your access: a yet to be defined favor which I can request at(?) any time in the future.”
The secret to life is making it work for you.
The one with a room with a view
It is Monday morning, 10.15 PM in the library and the mailroom just delivered the package I have been eagerly waiting for. Finally, the extended edition, director's cut DVD box of “The Librarian” in high definition and with sur
round sound has arrived. Now I can see the adventures in their full glory as they were meant to be. However, neither at home nor at the office do I have the equipment to enjoy this cinematic spectacle in all its beauty. Mmmm.
The library does have a small multimedia room that was used to show training videos - yes, real videocassettes with magnetic tape. I now use these as amusement for the new hires library tour. I make them guess how long the magnetic tape is in one cassette and then we measure it by pulling the tape across the hallways. As my first library teacher always said: "show, don't tell".
I now mostly use the multimedia room to store my collection of autographed famous librarian photos. My most priced possession is an autographed picture of Nancy Pearl, with a thoughtful motto on it as well: “Shush first, ask later”. This year I am hoping to expand my collection by getting an autographed picture of Stephen Abram at the annual Special Library Association conference. I would also really like to have one from Meredith Farkas, but I am too shy to ask her.
I walk over to my manager's office and walk in while I roll my eyes and sigh deeply. He pretends not to notice me and feverishly keeps typing. I look over his shoulder and say: "Hey, if you are using your calculator, you can only use numbers - no full sentences." My boss turns around annoyed and waves me to his small conference table. He wants me out of here as quickly as possible as I just caught him chatting with the new secretary in HR, but he quickly alt-tabbed to Microsoft Calculator when I looked over his shoulder.
"So, make it quick - I have a strategic alliance group meeting in ten minutes."
"Well, you know our multimedia room is completely out of date and unused? The Knowledge management & learning group thinks that is such a shame and now want to set up their own state of the art multimedia room next to their offices."