Ramblings on libraries and life upon the wicked stage

Imagine, if you will, that Great Britain – that damp, green, eccentric island – is experiencing a heat-wave.  Imagine, if you will, that the hottest July temperatures since the reign of Queen Victoria have been recorded.  Imagine, if you will, that there is a library, the Library of Doom, which has an interesting building design with lots of glass and a general lack of air-conditioning.  Imagine, therefore, lots of very hot and sweaty members of library staff.

There are certain things which you would not recommend doing in these circumstances.  For instance, you would not recommend having a fan that breaks if you invade its personal space, and then takes up to ten minutes to fix.  You would also not recommend touching this fan, and you would certainly not recommend moving it.  In fact, you would not recommend moving anything.

So, things not to do in the library on a hot day when you have a temperamental fan.  First thing, do not move office, even if your new office is a matter of yards away from your old one.  Do not be involved in a chain reaction of office moves that involves half a dozen members of staff, seven computers and a lot of furniture.  Do not move ring binders, box files, books, telephones, computer hardware, laminators, chests of drawers, stationery, a hat stand, a bag of doughnuts and a small stuffed snow leopard that has been forced upon you.  Do not move three people into a large office previously occupied by one person and expect it to be a simple matter to connect computers and telephones to power and networks.  Do not find that the result of staff cutbacks in Domestic Services is that desks have rarely been cleaned and hoovering has not happened for several months in any area where students do not venture.  Above all, do not carry out this office move with only one day’s notice.

If you do insist on engaging in this activity, then here is the second thing not to do in the library on a hot day.  Do not realise that there are no spare trolleys, a combined result of reduced summer staffing arrangements and the heat, which makes shelving a deeply unattractive choice of activity.  Do not decide, along with another colleague, to empty all the trolleys that are currently full of books, and do not empty seven trolleys between you in 45 minutes.  Above all, do not find that two of the trolleys contain books from ‘The Pit’, which is a room that may as well be a greenhouse.

If, like me, you do these things against all advice, expect the following things.  Your fan will break in a final and decisive manner and will have to be binned.  You will see more dust than you thought an institutional carpet could hold.  You will say ‘this is stupid’ with alarming regularity.  And you will sweat.  A lot.  An awful lot.  However, your cold shower when you get home will feel like heaven.  And you will eventually get a replacement fan that is much nicer than your old one.