An Imperfect Librarian (4 page)

I sent her emails. I thought she might want to know that her son bears a striking resemblance to her: pitch-black hair, dark eyes, olive-coloured skin. I tried a creative selection of subject lines. There was the variation on the
Hola mamá
plus
Baby from Quebec hospital
as well as
Remember Georges Brunet
?
I'm his son
and, towards the end when I was frustrated and said things I later regretted,
You're being selfish & cruel to your son
. The caption on the photo read:
Professor Margarita Xavier-Manzares, her husband Dom Fernandez, their daughters Gabriella and Maria and their only son Manuel.

CHAPTER SIX

H
ENRY
'
S
STAND UP TO THE
prick
reminds me of Papa's
Fight back
. I'll stand up to the prick on the day Henry resolves to learn to use the computer. That's not going to be anytime soon. The attendance lists come back to me after training sessions. Never do I see the name
Henry Kelly
. At Department Head meetings, if his name is mentioned, I make excuses for him: “He probably didn't know about the session. I'll work harder on publicising them.” Another time, I said I was training him privately. It's a good thing Henry didn't hear that.

He comes for coffee one afternoon when there's a session on online information search tactics that he's supposed to be participating in.

“How come you're not at training today?” I ask him.

“I won't be wasting my valuable intelligence on a passing fad. I'll leave the staring at a screen to illiterate philistines like yourself.” He pours a coffee, raises the cup to his lips, takes a mouthful, then spits it out.

“Would you do that on the floor of your own office?” I ask
him. “I bet you wouldn't.”

He unfolds a strip of paper towel from the stand, drops it on the coffee stain, then stamps on it. “Jesus. Who drinks dayold coffee?”

“I do.”

“Maybe that's what's wrong with you.”

He takes the pot to the hallway to rinse it in the water fountain. When he returns, he brushes me out of the way disdainfully with the type of hand that shoos birds. Next, he sniffs the grounds with the attention of a perfume designer. He pours the water with the calculated science of a chemist. Finally, he presses the switch like he's restoring power to a city after a blackout. When that's done, he folds his arms and eyes the pot as if it couldn't perform except under his supervision. “It's time for you to stand up to Francis,” he says. “He thinks he has a prick so long he can fuck everyone who comes near him.”

“Why don't you do it?”

“I've been around here too long. It takes someone new, someone like yourself from the outside,” Henry says.

“Francis has a committee, a campaign, a draft of a privacy policy, promotional materials. How can I compete?”

“Find yourself a Stephen Blumberg.”

“Never heard of him.”

“I could pretend he's the top striker for Manchester United,” he says. “You wouldn't know the difference, would you?”

“I never was much of football fan. I'd favour Arsenal over Manchester United, if I was.”

“Blumberg is to book theft what Bruce Reynolds is to train robbery. A mastermind.”

“He can't be that brilliant if he was caught.”

Henry crosses his arms and rests them on top of his belly. He spreads his legs to balance his weight. “They nabbed
Blumberg after he'd stolen twenty thousand rare books plus ten thousand manuscripts from hundreds of libraries in Canada as well as the States. He's the greatest American book thief of the twentieth century.”

He pours his coffee. I pour mine. We take our seats as if the show's set to begin.

“That's sixty or seventy books a day for a year.”

“Add to that all the time he spent scheming,” says Henry.

“He'd need a shopping cart for that many volumes.”

“His techniques were more subtle: everything from false IDs to stolen keys. My personal favourite is the simplest.” Henry brushes off his fingers on the armrest of his chair then raises one finger at a time for each item. “Locate the books, check them out, bring them home, remove the protective magnetic strip, return them to the library the following day.” Next, he holds up the other hand. “Return to the library, remove the books from the shelf, conceal them under your clothes, stroll out of the building.” For the finale, he turns his outstretched hands palms up. “No magnetic strip, no alarm.”

“Clever scheme for sure. Not foolproof though.”

Henry crosses his legs and leans back in his chair. “Not quite. One of the libraries maintained a digital archive of borrowers' records. They knew exactly who'd borrowed what, when. They were missing a particular book, checked their records and voilà. Since I'm not in the habit of boring people with detail, the rest you can imagine. Find yourself a miniature Blumberg. Prove that tracking patrons' borrowing histories can catch thieves and you'll have them eating out of your computer. Speaking of eating.” He goes to the coffee stand while I stare ahead into the Room.

Henry's not the only one who doesn't understand my project. It's meant to make best use of information on borrowing and querying. What types of books are borrowed the most,
longest or never? At what time of day, week or year are the most books borrowed? Do faculty or males query the database more than students or females? What are they searching for? I was relieved when the Chief Librarian asked me to give a talk at Library Council to explain the project. The timing was ideal. The Internet had just taken off. It was a historic moment in the evolution of libraries. I was there to be a catalyst for great change. I thought maybe some day people would look back on the work I did as a great achievement. I dreamed of getting an award.

I arrived to give my talk. The Chief introduced me. I was about to speak when a hand went up. It was a comment for the Chief from Francis. “Before any more money is spent on digital systems, a committee needs to be created to set a strategy and goals for what we want this library to look like in five or ten years time...” When he finished talking, others joined in. Someone said the committee needed to determine the duties and role of the Head of Digital Systems. Another person asked if we really needed a digital systems unit. I looked at my watch. There were twenty-five slides, two minutes per slide for a fifty-minute talk. Their discussion evolved into a debate about policies and procedures, whether the Chief really had the authority to advertise the digital systems position in the first place. Francis sat back with his arms folded. Within less than a week, he formed People for Privacy.

“My project isn't designed to catch thieves. You know that, Henry.”

The nerve is acting up again. He darts his hand to his back so quickly you'd think he'd been stung. He squirms in the chair. Then his face relaxes and he continues. “I don't care what your project is designed for anymore than do the People for Privacy. I doubt if anyone cares besides you. Show that your project can stop library theft and people might start to listen.”

“You seem to know Blumberg well. Invite him for a visit, have him steal a few hundred books while he's here, why don't you?”

“Wednesday and Friday at 3:45? Same reading carrel every time? Ding, dong, ding, dong. Little Miss Reading Room. You know what's so grand about using her for an example? She's stealing from the Room that Francis Hickey manages. Nab her, and you'll nab him. Then you can advise Mr. Hickey to roll up his petitions, pull down his trousers and wipe his arse with them.” He laughs, then coughs up crumbs.

“How were the cookies?” I ask him.

“You mean the chocolate chip biscuits?”

“They're cookies, not biscuits. Biscuits have nowhere near the number of calories.”

“You're the one who does all the counting and what bloody good has that done you?” he says.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A
LWAYS ON WEDNESDAY AND FRIDAY
, always at 3:45, always in the same reading carrel. Henry and I skip our afternoon coffee for one day so I can pay a visit to the Room. Other reading rooms I've visited or seen in pictures have wall-to-wall rows of tables and chairs. They should call them study halls. The Special Collections Reading Room isn't a study hall. It's more like four cozy salons without walls between them. Each one has chairs, a couch, table and a large secretary that Henry and I call reading carrels.

W
ELCOME TO THE
S
PECIAL
C
OLLECTIONS
R
EADING
R
OOM
,

KING EDWARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

1. No food, drinks, chewing gum, talking, rubbings of bindings, corrector fluid, highlighter pens, cameras, cellphones, headsets or personal scanners.

2. Patrons may consult no more than one item at a time.

3. Maximum reading period: three consecutive hours.

4. Materials may be consulted only in the Room.

3:45. She passes in front of me, leans on the main counter, picks up a request slip then fills it in. She's much taller than I thought. From my office, I hadn't noticed the rusty-coloured freckles, blue eyes, wind-burned face or the single purple streak in her silky black hair. She's dressed for April weather that's behaving like the middle of winter. Makes me think of someone holding a grudge for too long.

She completes the slip then slides it across the counter to the clerk. He swivels round and disappears into the stacks. While she waits, she sheds layers of windbreaker, scarf and woollen sweater. Strands of her hair stand on end when her sweater comes off. Our eyes meet for such a pithy instant I'm tempted to believe it didn't happen. The clerk hands her a folder, she signs the slip then goes to her carrel.

I lick my fingers, run them through my hair and think: write –
buy comb
on my priority list. “Hello,” I say to the clerk. “I'm Carl Brunet, Head of Digital Library Systems here at the library. Part of my job involves analyzing and interpreting library user data, such as what people put on request slips. Could I glance at that slip?”

“You're that Bibliosomething dude I read about in the
Campus Voice.
”

The reporter got it all wrong. As part of the explanation about my project, I'd said that if he lived in London he'd be caught on public surveillance cameras about three hundred times per day. My point was that we need to come to terms with the fact that we live in an information society. He shook my hand after the interview. “Good luck,” he said. I thought the article would be positive publicity for the library. Not so. The headline read:
Big Brother at the King E
.

“It's Bibliomining, actually. What about the slip? Could I have a moment with it?”

“I guess,” he says. “If it's part of your work, then it's OK.” He
hands me the request slip, a strip of paper and pencil.

I check over my shoulder. She's still in her carrel.

Name:
Dr. Norah Myrick

Faculty/Department:
History

Office:
A4005

Tel. no.:
737-2335

ID.: Faculty:
900034258

Manuscript title:
H. Mainwaring papers

Format:
Folder of loose pages (Approx. 50)

Original publication date:
1622

Library user number:
007440982

Date/Time out:
04/15/2000 15:50

Time returned:

He watches me as if he's trying to learn how to do it. I slide the slip away from him. He follows along after me. “What's the name of that group again? What's the expression they have? It was in the newspaper.”

I was on my way to work one morning. A young woman, probably no more than a first or second year student, asked me if I wanted a pen. She was giving them away outside the entrance. I took two. One had the slogan:
Privacy not prying.
The other said:
Keep your nose out of my book.
That was how the People for Privacy launched their campaign.

I pose the pencil and the card on the counter. “I'm not sure. Thank you.” I smile then walk away. I have one last glance before I leave. She's in her usual spot in the corner. I walk past the notice board on my way to the exit.
Our digital camera (without flash) is available for use. We scan maps on demand. Consider making a donation to the Newfoundlandia fund. Sign Now.
I follow an arrow that points to a petition.

Did you know an attorney in the southern U.S.A.

demanded that a library turn over the borrowing

histories of its patrons? The attorney was trying to

solve a case of child abandonment. He wanted the

names of every person who had borrowed books on

childbirth.

Could this happen at King Edward University

Library? The People for Privacy believe it could.

Sign our petition to demand protection of your

right to privacy in the library and everywhere.

New members & donations welcome.

Email us:
[email protected]

If I had a pen, I'd sign
Big Brother.
Instead, I head back to my office, uncrumple the scrap of paper from my pocket then type
Norah Myrick
into my project portal. The portal gives me
carte blanche
access to every major administrative database on campus. I start with circulation. She has 1534 books on loan, mostly on the philosophy of history and historiography. That's nothing. Faculty and graduate students are entitled to unlimited borrowing for unlimited periods. The Human Resources' database shows her age as forty-six; residence, Cliffhead, NL; status, untenured Assistant Professor, History Department. I Google her.