星空视频

by Geoff Walker

Hello everybody, thought I would concern you this month with another tale from my chequered career. For my sins I was once a public servant; a 鈥榮tackie鈥� at Fisher Library. Stackies being those poor menial oddjobs whose task it is to get the books from the shelves and put them back again.聽

Fisher Library is a real library. It has a ghost in the stacks, odd librarians and a roof that leaks when it rains. Also it holds the world鈥檚 premier Australiana collection. Historians use it to write their books. Any afternoon, you can see studious figures at the long mahogany desks, books piled beside their hunched frames. They鈥檙e not allowed to get their own books, though 鈥� that would be inviting chaos. The reading public cannot be trusted to return books in the right order. So you have to get stackies to put the books back for them. It is my definite opinion that punters should pass an entrance exam before crossing our august portals.

Very pleased to report that the library community has a real respect for books. I can assure you that if we ever start burning them, librarians will be guarding the doors with guns. That鈥檚 right. Spectacled types with the cardigans. Weird what people will do when they come to the place of few options, huh?

Stacks are these miles of corridors underground where the books are kept. Putting books back is not the world鈥檚 most interesting task so I used to take a ghetto blaster down there. There I would 鈥榩ut to the beat鈥�; likes my techno I does, so I would crank it up, grab books and return them to the beat of whatever was damaging the speakers鈥� 鈥淟eft, right, one, two, shuffle shuffle put-back鈥�. Righteous moves I do possess.聽

Senior staff were not the best. Meeting them I often thought, 鈥淚 actually like you鈥� but after a while I thought, 鈥渁ctions speak louder than words and you don鈥檛 do squat鈥�. Head librarian was no better. Mate of mine was summoned to do some typing and summoned again cos Herselfness didn鈥檛 like the font. Anyway, so the stacks were these end-of-days version of your overstuffed bookshelf and once a year the seniors would re-write last year鈥檚 report on the need for reform. So we stackies would go downstairs and reform them. Weirdly dull: look about, try and find some room, shift 87 books a bit to the left, argh.聽

Fisher is what鈥檚 known as a library of record; every book and publication ever published in NSW, you got to send them a copy. As do Playboy. And Penthouse. So on the first floor up a ladder and through a door is an ordinary little room. Containing possibly the greatest concentration of accumulated 鈥榓dult reading鈥� in New South Wales. 鈥榯was tended by Fisher鈥檚 most respectable librarian, a a young lady of sober mien and sensible dress. Organising those volumes would have been an imposing task. I hope she didn鈥檛 spend too much time up there.聽

After a few months working the logistics of Fisher鈥檚 information retrieval program, word came of a place at the inter-library loans section. Feeling I had galvanised the logistics personnel to greater effort, I departed for loans. I was sure I was going to be the successful candidate. And being the only applicant, I was.聽

Workplaces are rumour mills, right? And for some idiot reason, inter-library loans had a reputation as being a foul place to work. Which it wasn鈥檛. It was actually the best place to work. Built around this lush indoor garden with a huge skylight, the caf茅 was next door and your time was your own. Officially I had bosses but they were too lazy to check as long as I delivered on a forgiving little quota.聽

Which I did. Geoff鈥檚 empire was expanding. From a small wooden desk with a tray of forms on it I had graduated to a large polymer desk with a digital computer! Cor. From this nexus of digital control I effected the distribution of books to various Sydney libraries via the envelope and bubble wrap method.聽

I鈥檇 write more but I just ran into the 650 words sign.