cutting costs; the stance is
That chopping limbs will save the tree,
And so we’re pruning branches.
The practice has its precedents
In lean times long gone by,
When former branches lacking the
Right champions would die.
There once were branches in the ’burbs
With holdings long since split up
’Twixt those whose books we now consign
Unto the few still lit up.
With each that falls the thought disturbs
Me, and I grow afraid
The next one cut might well be mine,
A ghost that won’t be laid.
For now they’re bleeding Downtown down,
And whisking Beech away—
A straightly necessary task
To keep afloat, they say.
Such tactics tend to bring a frown
To book lovers, who see
So truncated a trunk they ask
If it won’t hurt the tree.
But now the amputation’s done;
Still smarting, we are told
For operations to do good
It’s better to be bold.
Well, if they’ve finished with their fun,
We shouldn’t raise a stink,
For if some limbs are fire-wood,
The rest are safe — we think.
Non-Roman Materials <
Materials in Slavic,
Finno-Ugric, or Moravic,
To a cataloger
Are an aggravation.
When books are Japanesy,
Or Chinese, it isn’t easy
To transcribe ’em. We are
Left to fulmination.
But we puff up like Patton
When the alphabet is Latin:
Amid others, it’s a
Cause for celebration.
And heart-strings go a-tinglish
For books actually in English —
It’s a happenstance of
General jubilation.
Serial Receiver <
The check-in file is my home:
To keep it neat I strive,
And tally journals as they come,
In proof that they arrive.
My standing orders are to check
Our standing orders in.
An issue missed our run will wreck,
So losing one’s a sin.
A group of drawers I’ve been assigned
Of check-in records full
I must maintain till I go blind —
Or bonkers, it’s so dull.
To mark up every check-in card
It seems, must be my fate
Until my mind dissolves to lard.
When do we automate?
Ditch Diggers <
Ditches delved into the ground
Grow in lock-step lines around
Our poor library, to sever
It from every place whatever.
Ditches, too, march up the plaza,
Eating up whatever was u-
Pon the ground, ’ere they were there.
Trenches, trenches, everywhere!
Workers! tractors! braces! noise!
Concrete pipes and other toys!
More equipment! More appears!
To assault our eyes (and ears)!
What the ditchers might be doing,
What replacing, what renewing,
What unearthing, who can know?
Ask the folks who run the show.
I would guess that all this movement
Of the earth bodes some improvement
In our plumbing, or connections —
Some such technical corrections.
Is it to improve the draining?
Carry steam? No one’s explaining.
Other reasons? I can’t say.
Looks important, anyway!
Databasing <
In merging data in a database,
It must be organized, to better sieve
The information that the searchers chase,
And from the mass of chaff the wheat retrieve.
It has to be amenable to search,
And winnow down the broadest of results,
Unless you’d leave your users in the lurch.
Too much found, like too little, just insults.
To manage people’s information needs
Is both our job and duty, to be sure.
We ease the way for everyone who reads;
For those who don’t, we haven’t any cure.
To pinpoint what you seek, on-line or bound,
It helps to have a database around.
Computer Cries <
Oh hearken and give ear to the great wail,
The kindly boon of our administration!
All other workplace noises go pale
Before its great, unceasing ululation!
Could we be reckoned lacking in maturity,
Replete with lust to steal our equipment?
Guess so; to our computers, for security,
They’ve glued alarms. It seems they had a shipment.
These siren off whenever something’s moved,
Unsilenceable sans the combination.
The slightest bump will set one off. It’s proved
A symphony of constant consternation.
O would a pestilence would take the twerp
Who first conceived of making hardware chirp!
Ebrary <
We have no use these days for cards
Since online access started.
The old techniques no one regards,
And no one’s broken-hearted.
In modern times, libraries need
New tech to do their duty:
We’ve databases now, indeed,
Which takes a good computy.
Oh how we love those big machines
With all their lights and switches!
Computer screens dance in our dreams,
Despite their constant glitches.
We’ve gaily thrown our files away;
Our shelf-lists too we’re trashing.
Without regard for that dread day
Our system may go crashing.
System Freeze <
I think no frost could be so cold
As that felt in a system freeze:
No doom was e’er so loudly tolled
As death by Terminal disease.
We inputters are flipping out
Till this predicament abates.
We have no work to be about,
Unless the system operates.
We wait until we’ve reached the stage
Where wilder folk become berserks:
Before it’s up, we’re sunk in age,
And can’t remember how it works.
Yet winter passes on: with spring,
Computers spring up green once more.
But input quick, lest in the wing
Another outage lie in store.
Modem Operandi <
There was a man who tried to do
Some work, but couldn’t do ’t:
Each time that he attempted to,
His PC wouldn’t boot.
He asked the systems people “What
Is wrong here?” “Nothing to ’t!”
They came and fiddled with it, but
It still would not compute.
Though called back many times, not one
Attempted fix bore fruit:
The damned contraption wouldn’t run.
At length the point was moot.
“Since nobody, it seems, can get
Down to the problem’s root,”
The man said to the thing, “I’ll let
You go, you dumb galoot!”
With that, the man retrieved a gun,
And made as if to shoot.
At once, the thing began to run—
Perverted little brute!
System Change <
&nbs
p; A slow-down time, a take-stock time —
That’s winter as it was;
But that’s a pleasure of the past
That’s passed away, because
We’re changing systems! Yes we are!
We don’t like things the way they are!
We mustn’t stay the way we are —
Indeed, what ever does?
A time to study, and assess —
That’s how it used to be.
But that’s a luxury we can’t
Afford this year, as we
Like lemmings, rush into the flood!
It’s time to change! We’re sweating blood!
And if we change, and it’s a dud?
Oh my! Catastrophe!
But ways are changing, far and near,
And we must go along.
What happens elsewhere has to here,
And so we say so long —
Goodbye to methods of the past!
They’re passé, so they couldn’t last!
We must have something new, and fast!
To Progress — right or wrong!
Paperless Society <
In the paperless world
The books are on computer,
Magazines, the Internet,
And letters on email.
There is no paper in the
Paperless society.
In the paperless world
Air dryers sub for towels,
Phone messagers take memos,
And Etch-a-Sketches drawings.
There is no paper in the
Paperless society.
Lap-tops produce school papers.
Toilet paper, paper hats,
Origami, paper planes,
All these are things of the past.
There is no paper in the
Paperless society.
The paper mills stop business.
Libraries all shutter up.
There's no more need of paper.
Yes, we’re phasing flora out.
Fauna next. And humans? Soon.
Tech's in! Who needs organics?
Yes, a paperless world
Can have no more need of plants,
No more need of animals,
And no more need of people.
Just electronics for the
Paperless society.
Electronic Blues <
I sing to thee, O Internet,
O muse of modern men,
Or would, if I could only get
The notes out, through my pen.
The song that Homer sang the Greeks
Set down upon the page.
The rhyme I set to paper seeks
The Web, this day and age.
What medium the morrow may
Make heir unto the air
We now know not, though we can say
Today it isn’t there.
As written word replaced the voice,
So keyboard hath my ink.
Of tools to aid the mind, our choice
Doth ever change, I think.
A pox upon thee, Internet!
You digitize my views
Right off the page. From thee I get
The electronic blues.
Elevator <
Evening rounds the work day full,
Swinging labor to a lull.
In each heart flares one desire.
Time to pack up and retire.
Everyone get out of here:
Time to head on off — oh, dear!
Where the heck’s the elevator?
We have never known it later.
Come O, car: approach our floor,
Stop, and open up your door.
Send some sign that may betoken
That you’re working, and not broken.
Elevator, kindly waft
Hither to us in your shaft.
We’ve been biding here a while,
Patiently in single file.
Oh, it’s tedious to wait!
Hurry up, it’s getting late!
Where and wither do you roam?
Get up here! Let us go home!
Woe! The elevator doesn’t:
Won’t be here. It isn’t. Wasn’t.
Seems it’s halted for repairs.
Guess we’d better try the stairs.
Asbestos <
(With Apologies to William Blake)
Fiber, fiber, turning white
In our ceilings, out of sight,
How we wish you wouldn’t be
Brimming with toxicity.
Even though we all admire
How you ward us safe from fire,
If your fibers loosen, death
Enters us in every breath.
Would our building’s builders knew
Of the danger hid in you!
But they weren’t aware, and so
Their precaution brought us woe.
Fiber, fiber, in the wall,
Are you there, or not at all?
Safety testers check to see,
Curing our uncertainty.
If you’re absent, then the status
Of our breathing apparatus
Probably is safe: if not,
Silicosis is our lot.
If you are removed we’ll breathe
Easier for the reprieve:
If you aren’t, we’ll blanch in fear
Every time we enter here.
Fiber, fiber, turning white,
Leave our lungs alone, all right?
Failing such, we must your toll
Face asbestos possible.
Book Sale <
The city library must bankrupt be,
For when I passed it, they were selling books,
For less than what they’d paid, apparently.
I stopped: it’s not a thing one overlooks.
They hawked the paperbacks for but a buck,
And hard-bound volumes sold for only two.
Which struck me as a happy bit of luck,
So naturally I purchased quite a few.
But why, I wondered, would they sell their stock?
To solve the mystery I resolved to try,
And pondered long what lay behind the shock
Until I felt I’d hit the reason why.
These items are perchance not moving well,
So what they cannot lend, they think to sell.
Year’s End Doldrums <
No hands on clacking keyboards time the hours;
No squeaking book-trucks trundle to and fro;
No rush requests remain to try our powers;
No meetings now impede our labor’s flow.
What happened to the people? Gone, each face;
Unheard now, each familiar step and voice;
All vanished are the haunters of this place,
Departed, as by universal choice.
A paltry handful only now remain.
The embers in the ashes of the fire,
To chill and bank and then themselves refrain—
Shut down, switch off, lock up, and too retire.
The hunt’s blown home: the hound’s left off the chase.
The hold-outs hold no longer. Gone, each face.
###
Credits <
These poems were first published in the 1990s in SUL News Notes, electronic newsletter of the Stanford University Libraries, in the issues indicated below. For their appearance here the texts have been revised, in some instances substantially, and several have been retitled.
“Asbestos,” v. 2, no. 44, Nov. 5, 1993.
“Back to Work,” v. 3, no. 12, Mar. 25, 1994.
“Book Sale,” v. 1, no. 48, Dec. 11, 1992.
“Borrower Blues,” as “The Borrower Blues,” v. 5, no. 5, Feb. 9, 1996.
“Computer Cries,” v. 2, no. 2, Jan. 15, 1993.
“Databasing,” v. 2, no. 21, May 28, 1993.
“Ditch Diggers,” v. 3, no. 37, Oct. 7, 1994.
“The Donor,” v. 4, n
o. 44, Nov. 17, 1995.
“Ebrary” as “Online on the Line,” v. 1, no. 46, Nov. 20, 1992.
“Electronic Blues” as “I Suffer an e-Change, or, Electronic Blues,” v. 5, no. 4, Jan. 26, 1996.
“Elevator,” v. 4, no. 4, Jan. 27, 1995.
“Library Labor,” v. 3, no. 24, Jul. 1, 1994.
“Library Scene” as “When a Library is Academic,” v.1:no.39 10/2/92.
“Modem Operandi,” v. 3, no. 3, Jan. 21, 1994.
“Non-Roman Materials,” v. 2, no. 4, Jan. 29, 1993.
“Notice to Patrons” as “To Students Who Could Use a Book,” v. 2, no. 39, Oct. 1, 1993.
“Paperless Society” as “The Paperless Society,” v. 5, no. 13, 4/5.96.
“Portal Monitor” as “We Do It All for You!” v. 2, no. 33, 8/20/93.
“The Process,” v. 2, no. 48, Dec. 10, 1993.
“Reshelving,” v. 2, no. 29, Jul. 23, 1993.
“Scaling Back” as “Pruning Branches,” v. 1, no. 45, Nov. 13, 1992.
“Serial Receiver” as “Serious Wrestles in Serial Records,” v. 1, no. 43, Oct. 30, 1992.
“System Change,” v. 5, no. 20, May 31, 1996.
“System Freeze” as “NOTIS Freeze,” v. 2, no. 3, Jan. 22, 1993.
“Year’s End Doldrums” as “The Year’s End Doldrums,” v.3:no.47 12/22/94.
###
About the author <
Brian Phillip Kunde, writer, poet and artist, is a life-long Californian. He is a founding member of the San Francisco Bay area writers’ group Spilt Ink, author of numerous essays, poems and short stories, a play, and an aspiring novelist. This is his first ebook, though samples of his writings and some whole works are available on the Internet. On the net Brian is best known for the essays “A Brief History of Word Processing” and “A Brief History of Bay Area Parks and Open Space,” the web projects The Best English-Language Fiction of the Twentieth Century and The Works of Mary Tappan Wright Online, and his authorship of hundreds of Wikipedia articles, mostly on literary subjects. In the mundane world he has spent the past quarter century as a serials specialist with the Stanford University Libraries following earlier stints at the California Academy of Sciences and NASA/Ames Research Center.
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