Library Madness, Ethics and Bosses

You might as well sit down.  I'm about to say something nice about my boss.


He confuses me.


In a land where I like to see things in black and white, he has these occasional bursts of technicolor.


For example, thanks to our psychopath director, we are automating the library (while simultaneously being pressured to improve our customer service, from a presumed rating of 97%).  The two largest branches had a go at it, and the director claims that it has been a brilliant success, as are all his ideas.  One would think that the plan would be to convert the next largest branch, but one would be wrong.  Our tiny, overstuffed branch is next.


So yesterday I walked in to a surprise visit from the psychopath.  After his important meeting with the branch manager (my boss), we were told it looks like we will be next for the conversion to self-checkout.  To my first question, why, he said probably because they only had enough money in this budget year to convert us, and would have to hold off till the next budget year for a larger, busier branch.


Gods bless the government bureaucrats.  They will always look for the lost coin under the streetlight, and not bring a flashlight to look in the spot where they lost it.


This being a done deal, we proceeded to talk about how on earth we are going to set up a self-checkout in our teeny-tiny little branch, that doesn't have enough shelf space for all the books.  He reminded us that, not only would we have to make room for the self-checkout area, but for books on reserve, which the public would pick up themselves instead of at the circulation desk.


One of the questions that has puzzled me about this whole scenario is that if you put hot new books and especially hot new dvd's that are on reserve for someone out in a public area, on the honor system, just how honorable are people going to be?


And you can't get the answer from any of the branches that are doing it, because they aren't going to tell you the truth.  They are going to tell you what the mad director would tell you, which is that everything will work wonderfully well, and staff now has time to do all those things we didn't have time to do before.


And, by the way, we are now going to have to be a lot more proactive when the door alarm goes off, which I guess means chasing folk out to their cars and making them empty their pockets and bags.


But my boss surprised me.  He said that, yes, that was something that we were going to have to deal with, but what he was concerned about --


-- get ready for it --


-- is the fact that reserves would be open to public scrutiny, and patrons would lose that right to privacy that libraries have been trying to guard ferociously since 9/11.


He said that that issue had been brought up on the employee forum (from which I have thus far abstained, due to my own ferociously guarded right to avoid Big Brother), and that, to his surprise, no one touched it.  Not one comment.


Huh.


So I thought a bit more about that, lost some sleep last night over how creepy my sweet little community library is getting.


Want a book that's at another branch and you can't get there to pull it off the shelf?  Maybe about LGBT issues, or depression, or divorce?  How about the newest Blu-Ray blockbuster?  Just put it on hold and we'll get it for you, and then we'll set it out where everyone can take a look at it.


The advantage to this is...


...I guess that our mad director will be happy.  And we all want to keep him happy, don't we?


As far as the branch manager goes, keep an eye on him.  Unlike his predecessor, he does have a brain, and may even have a heart.  The jury's still out.