Halloween in Dotland

Today was Halloween in Dotland. Of course, there are those who say that every day in the Duchy is pretty scary. The Dots and the rest of the building celebrated the occasion with a potluck. Attracted by food, Fuschia, the Follay Fairy (pronounced faux - lay, (quiet, Purple!), spelled Follett, referred to by many as Folly) was flitting about the building all day in her feathery finery, flapping her magic wand at Folly, and finally interfering in folk's affairs. Silver was nowhere to be seen but the ghost of Gold was seen several times, accompanied by the ominous clunking that Turquoise so fears. Taking advantage of Silver's absence, Fuschia fidgeted her way into a face-to-face with the Diva, ferreting out facts about Silver's new fashions. "So when will Silver be fitted in the finest fashion?" asked Fuschia. "The costumer says that as long as Silver is wearing her current robes no new robes can be created." replied the Diva. "What will that fashion be?" fussed Fuschia. "I don't have details" said the Diva "but the new robes will come from TiTS". "Hmmm.." said Fuschia fluttering away. Next Fuschia went to talk to Purple. "The Diva feels that Silver's finery will be fashioned by TiTS. I fear Silver might fail to find the fitness in that." "You're right" Purple replied "Garments from TiTS tend to be rather industrial and full of wires." "The Diva also says that also long as Silver wears her current robes, no new robes can be fashioned..." "Oh..." said Purple, encouraging Fuschia to continue (big mistake, Fuschia needs no encouragement.) "OK" said Fuschia "forget the folderol. Are they saying that because Silver is being paid as a temp hourly, they can't possibly advertise a permanent full-time position? Does that make any sense at all? And people say I'm foolish! And do they mean that Silver has to quit as a temp-hourly and then the full-time job will suddenly appear? Do they expect her to fall for that?! You want my opinion, I think they need to go back to firing her by pigeon!" Fuschia shoved her feathers back and stomped off, irritably flicking her wand at unsuspecting flies.
Later, Fuschia came across a very blue Blue who blew her stack. "The new IDEA leaves me out of meetings. No one tells me what is happening. I only know what I read in agitateddots." "Join the club" muttered Fuschia glumly, "Silver never tells me anything." The other Dots, being more sensible than Fuschia, gathered around to remind Blue of her importance to Dotland. "You're still the boss" said Sage. "No, I'm not" wailed Blue, "IDEA is the boss". "No,Boss, I still respect you at the same level of bossiality" replied Sage. "Yes" said Purple "you have the same bossivity." "But I never wanted to be the Boss. I'm just the referee" moped Blue. "OK, Ref" responded Purple and Sage "You're always the Blue Dot but we don't want you to be a blue Blue Dot!"

The Black Queen strikes again

The Black Queen came out of seclusion today to slap Silver's hand for "shouting", in Capitals, by pigeon, at TiTS. Silver was nonplused. "That was only emphasis. Shouting would be much larger, 16 pt and bold at least. Besides it was only two words. If I don't send them pigeons like that once in a while, they'll think I don't love them any more." The Black Queen also suggested that Silver shout at the new IDEA instead of TiTS. Silver wasn't thrilled with that either. "Why would I shout at IDEA? She's fun to have around." It sounds like the Black Queen is up to her old tricks of sowing discord. It must be very frustrating for her to have to deal with Dotland, Studioland, and librarians all of whom live to collaborate, facilitate and have celebratory potlucks.

GLUE

Today I was simply GLUED to the blog by Purple's comment. Things like that are the GLUE that hold us all together. If only we have more of that kind of GLUE in the Duchy, I'm sure we would all be GLUED to our desks by the pleasure of work. Instead we have the Black Queen who is sort of like that GLUEY stuff you find on the bottom of your shoe. The Black Queen obviously needs GLUE to hold her schemes together, however, I'm not sure there's enough GLUE in the world for that. Now I must go. I have GLUING to do.

Glue

"Glue" said Turquoise.
"What?" asked Silver.
"Glue. We have a PO. We have the possibility of possibly possessing paste at some point." Replied Turquoise. (Boy, contact with Fuschia, the Follay Fairy has some odd effects, doesn't it?)
"Why are you whispering?" inquired Silver.
"Don't you remember? The last time I mentioned you-know-what in public I got my hand slapped good!" Turquoise responded.
"Oh, right. Well, what will you do now?"
"I'm not sure. I could send a pigeon to the villages telling them we have, or least soon will have, you-know-what. But I'm not sure that telling them we have...you-know-what is positive enough." explained Turquoise.
"Why not? Having something seems more positive than not having something."
"Yes, but saying that we HAVE something raises the possibility that we could also NOT HAVE something."
"Oops, you're right. We don't want any more hand-slapping incidents."
Turquoise and Silver went off to talk it over with Blue, Purple and Sage.

Dishing with the Dots

The Dots were discussing current events (and other things) at lunch today. "One of the villages was had a lock down yesterday" said Silver. "Why?" asked Sage. "They had to call the police about a suicidal villager" responded Silver. "No!" gasped the Dots "What happened?" "Shot him" volunteered Purple. "With a tranquilizer dart" said Silver. "What!?" exclaimed Turquoise. "It's all right. They'll relocate him in a natural habitat, a village in a better neighborhood, maybe" continued Silver. The other Dots agreed that would work and went back to discussing lunch.

Fushia, the Follay Fairy

Today we caught up with Fuschia, the Follay Fairy, taking a Pepsi break. She was looking a little frazzled.
"'sup, Fushia" we asked.
"I'm furious" she fumed "I fear that some librarians and Dot Castle types feel that libraries shouldn't find out about Cataloging because Fate and Always Perfect will replace Cataloging. Even when I show them that Always Perfect isn't actually Perfect and that Fate isn't a destination, they still flail about trying to fling more fortune to fix failures. (Fushia uses a lot of F words, but not THE F word.)
"What does Fate have to do with it?" we inquired.
"Oh, I'm sorry. You may know it as Destiny but I call it Fate."
"What are your plans?" we asked.
"I fancy introducing my friend, Marc, to the peasants."
"We've heard that Marc is pretty fearsome" we said. (Now she's got us doing it.)
"Well, Marc is not favored in face, sort of a fine fellow in frog's clothing. But if you figure out how to fiddle with Marc, he can facilitate fifth graders finding their fill of fabulous facts. I feel that if we form fellowships with the peasants and Marc, everyone would feel finer.
"We've heard that meetings, fellowships, and especially, training are frowned upon by the castle" we said.
"That's factual" Fushia replied "but we've found that while training is frowned on, awareness is fine. So my friends in Dotland and I fancy that facilitating an awareness of Marc in peasants and librarians might frame finer libraries."
"And what of Destiny?"
"You mean Fate. Fate is the least of our problems. If Dotland, the peasants, and the librarians, are allowed to formulate a feasible framework for following Fate, we will find the future favorable. Now I have to go" she said firmly, finishing her Pepsi, and giving a final fidget to her finery.

Numbers

Today we are going to talk about some numbers. The Castle seems to be determined to buy Destiny from the Folly company. Possibly you would be interested in the price tag for Destiny. If the Castle has a current price quote for Destiny, they have not seen fit to share it with Dotland. However, Mohave Educational Services Cooperative has a quote. The site claims that the quote is good until 2009 although the quote itself claims to expire 12/31/2004. However, maybe the numbers in the quote can give us a rough idea of the bottom line. Destiny Library Manager for school districts with 51 or more schools has a list price of $2500 per site for districts with current support for Cataloging and Circulation. That would be about $250,000 if our support were current. Since it's not, if we have to pay back support, that would be about $312,000. In addition, the Castle also seems to be determined to buy textbook handling from Destiny. It's called Destiny Textbook Manager which lists at $2099 per site. That's about $209,900. So that's a total of $521,900 spent for library and textbook software at a time when the Duchy is cutting library support jobs, like Gold. Some of the Dots are pretty agitated about this!

More disappearances in Dotland?

Gold is gone!
This tear-stained missive was found crumpled outside Silver's cubicle. There is speculation that this latest disappearance is linked to the earlier Dotland Disappearances, reported by True Crime Weekly on August 22. The Dotland Police were unwilling to comment but did confirm that Gold had not been seen for several days. The Dotland Daily recieved an anonymous pigeon (it was gray) stating that the new IDEA was responsible for "vanishing" Gold. IDEA refused to comment on Gold but did say that Turquoise would be handling barcodes. When this was reported to Turquoise she shuddered..."I hate the clunking...the clunking like the footsteps of a mad-eyed killer climbing up the cellar stares, dripping knife in hand... " she shuddered again "You'll have to excuse me now. I have estress." Silver just sobbed and slammed the door.

Daring daylight robbery at Dot Castle!

The Dotland Daily
Today the SNEAC building was buzzing with the news of a daring daylight robbery at Dot Castle. A priceless architectural print was stolen from Dot Castle, in broad daylight, from under the noses of the Dot Castle staff. The Dotland Daily was able to obtain an exclusive interview with a Mystery Dot who may have been involved in the crime. Her, uh, the Dot's identity has been concealed.
Dotland Daily Were you acting alone?
Mystery Dot No.
DD Who else was involved?
Dot I have no comment at this time.
DD Why did you do it?
Dot I had no choice. The Diva was putting relentless pressure on us.
DD What did the Diva want?
Dot There was a bare spot on the wall and she wanted it covered up.
DD What did you do?
Dot We were desparate when someone remembered an architectural print in a stairwell in Dot Castle. He , uh, this person, said it had been there several years because it had fallen off the wall and no one could figure out whose responsibility it was to rehang it. He, uh, this person drew me a map. He, uh, this person, said I could go in the front door, straight to the stairwell, pick up the print and then walk casually out the side door with the print. I followed his, uh, this person's, instructions. No one even noticed me.
DD Where is the print now?
Dot Hanging on the bare spot.
DD What did the Diva say?
Dot She said "It's still kind of bare. Can you steal another one?" so we did.
DD You stole two prints from Dot Castle?!
Dot Naw, we just snuck into an empty office in the SNEAC building and took one off the wall.
DD Do you expect to be charged with robbery?
Dot If I get charged, I'm not going down alone! I want a lawyer!

The Dotland Daily was also able to talk with a witness from Dot Castle.
DD Did you see anything suspicious?
Witness No.
DD You didn't notice someone walking out with a huge architectural print?
Witness Oh, that! I saw that.
DD What did you say?
Witness Thank God! That thing has been in the way for two years now.

The Dotland Daily will continue to follow up on this breaking story.

Of Dots, Divas and Decorations

Earlier it was reported the Black Dot Queen was attempting to seize some of the Diva's real estate. There was a brisk exchange of pigeons before the Black Queen settled into her favorite tactic of arranging meetings that she could then cancel or be late for. The Diva, however, settled into decorating. The contested real estate has become a fully utilized mini-museum. The Diva is now working on redecorating the entire SNEAC building in preparation for a visit from Hahvahd while the Black Queen has canceled three meetings and a phone call. (I bet when she was young she held her breath until she turned blue...a really ugly blue, never a proper Dotly blue. The resulting brain damage might explain why she has never noticed that her tactics don't seem to work. ) The Dots, of course, always keep Dotland nicely decorated so they are ready for state visits any time. What is missing in Dotland is music. Navy has to send her songs in by pigeon and it's just not the same!

The Stealth Destiny

Sage and Silver went to a meeting today with the new IDEA and the Lime Green Knight and some interested librarians. The meeting was about Destiny and Folly. The Lime Green Knight revealed that Destiny has secretly (or stealthly) been installed at one of the villages. Not for the village to use, of course. Actually, Silver was not sure what it was for. The Lime Green Knight said he had a secret password that he couldn't tell anyone, especially Silver. Silver wonders what THEY are afraid of. Of course, Silver would also like to know who THEY are. The meeting talked a lot about Destiny but not a lot about the Duchy treasury. The Lime Green Knight didn't think we need to worry about the treasury. Why are we having meetings about Destiny when the Duchy can't afford alms for the peasants, pencils for the students, books for the library? Is this just another kind of "Strategic Planning" intended to keep us distracted until the Black Queen "vanishes" the rest of the Dots?

Technology Leadership

From the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory
Critical Issue: Technology Leadership
Reasons why efforts to improve schools may fail
The purpose is not made clear. Like, the Black Queen's plan that we still have not seen?
The participants are not involved in the planning. The decision to change the ordering process was made without asking ANY of the stakeholders, not the principals, not the office managers, not finance, not purchasing, not Dotland.
The appeal is based on personal reasons. What appeal?
The habit patterns of the work group are ignored. It's pretty hard to discover habit patterns without interacting with the work group.
There is poor communication regarding a change. No, there was NO communication.
There is fear of failure. Well, the Black Queen is definitely afraid of failure, with good reason.
Excessive work pressure is involved. Dumbsizing usually leads to excessive work pressure on those that remain.
The cost is too high, or the reward for making the change is seen as inadequate. Reward, what reward?
The present situation seems satisfactory. You mean like if it works don't fix it?
There is a lack of respect and trust in the change initiator. The Black Queen worked really hard to earn that lack of respect and trust.
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In the meantime, in addition to library book orders not getting done, apparently some school offices aren't getting their supply orders filled either. In addition to peasants without glue, we have students without pencils. The Duchy is unable to supply students with the minimum required by the state - 1 pencil per student per month! The Duchy is buying Smartypants boards, wooo, technology, but apparently can't find the money for pencils. Where is the money going!!!

Accountability

Since the Bored of Appeal ruled that the peasants would not get an upgrade in their alms allowance, I've been thinking about budgets and accountability. We've heard over and over from the Black Dot Queen that the villages have to be accountable for their spending. We've been told that the reason the parchment, scroll, and manuscript budget had to be moved to the villages was to give the villages more control and thus make them more accountable. I'm thinking that I would like Black Dot Castle to be more accountable. The Queen of the Realm gave the Duchy more money for scholars. The scholars have been asking where the money went. Duke Phfffr has had the Duchy Crier announce where the Realm's money went. The scholars seem to find the explanation insufficient. I want to know where the rest of the Duchy's money is going. Let's recap. Since last year, Dotland has been cut from 11 Dots to 4 and three quarters. Based on level of service, TiTS seems to have been cut deeply but no one is saying by how many. The Black Queen said that the villages were getting more money for scrolls this year, but it turned out that she had forgotten to add in the fees, taxes, and other levies and it's really just the same amount of money. The Duchy did not pay for Folly support this year. So where is all of the money the Duchy saved going? Why is the Duchy considering Destiny when the current staff can't even support the Duchy now? Why is the Duchy designing new robes for Silver? Silver did not ask for new robes. If we want to talk about real control and accountability, why weren't the villages allowed to choose whether they would rather have central order processing or do it themselves? Why was the decision for all schools made by a handful of headmen? Were those headmen elected by the other villages as their representatives? And the Bored of Appeal...who WERE they, what were their qualifications, what gave them the expertise to make the decision? Where is the accountability for any of these decisions?

Fuchsia or Magenta?

In Dotland, the leaves don't change color in the fall but Silver's hair does. She unveiled the new color but hasn't decided on a name yet. Fuchsia or Magenta? Any suggestions?

In other news, the Peasants are restless. Their request for an increase in alms was denied. Why? There's fairly wide agreement that peasants are working harder than ever. Even the Board of No Appeal recognized that Times Have Changed, however, still no more alms. Duke Phfffr is already in trouble over questions of Duchy assets. Has the Duke been playing the Old Shell Game with the alms? Actually we thought the Black Dot Queen had patented the Old Shell Game. Possibly the only solution is to insist that both of them keep their hands above the table and their sleeves rolled up at all times.

Secrets of SNEAC

Have you wondered why GoG is so reluctant to enter Dotland? Why does the Black Dot Queen say that the level of unrest and animosity in the Snavely-Nurdling Educational Assets Centre, home of Dotland, is such that UN peacekeepers are needed? And why is the Black Queen trying so hard to get two of her teachers into SNEAC? Your interpid reporter decided to do some on-location investigation. At first all seemed well. The people appeared friendly and welcoming. The first inkling of trouble came when I happened upon a meeting that included both Studioland and Dotland, heads close together, obviously collaborating. When they realized an outsider was present, they quickly snarled insults at each other and left. Looking back I saw them begin working together again. Later I see, Yellow-and-Black Dot from Bondland (no, not Bombland. There is no Bombland in the Duchy. Although with the level of unrest among both the peasants and the teachers, can Bombland be far behind?). Yellow-and-Black was having lunch with Red from ScienceLand and Purple from Dotland. Again, the congenial gathering was quickly broken up when they realized that I was a reporter. It was clear I wasn't going to find much without some real digging. Surreptiously opening an unguarded cabinet I found an ominous placard shoved behind some books. It said Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. By accident I came across the final and most damning piece of evidence. It was a portfolio with complete plans, drawings, and color schemes for creating an inviting workspace for the Black Queen's teachers. In addition to the space design there were plans for potlucks and other collaborations between StudioLand, Dotland, ScienceLand and the new teachers. The Black Queen is doomed. She will never understand why her new teachers are suddenly producing wonderful lessons that include art and science and library resources. No wonder GoG is so reluctant to come near SNEAC. GoG only collaborates with herself. She might melt if exposed to the normal level of cooperation in SNEAC.

Collaboration

Today in the regular staff meeting the Diva commented again on how well her staff works together with each other and with others with a spirit of true collaboration. She also commented that this behavior isn't common in the Duchy. We all know that is true, particularly in Black Dot Castle. I was thinking about different uses of the word collaboration. When it's used in the Duchy, everyone assumes it means "working together" hopefully for the common goal of improving the educational life of students. I'm thinking that in the Duchy, collaboration really has the other meaning of (from Wikipedia)

In certain political contexts (such as a state of war) the term collaboration (ism) or collaborator may refer (pejoratively) to individuals who are claimed to have been working with an outside entity against their own societies.

Certainly it seems that the Black Dot Queen believes that everyone is out to diminish her power. Of course, at this point that's completely true. Would it be true if the Black Queen had dealt with others in a spirit of true collaboration in the first place? Actually at this point it seems like the attitude toward the Black Dot Queen is more like "We're busy working here. Could you please go play your nasty power games outside and stop agitating the Dots!"
Wikipedia also lists one of the barriers to collaboration as hoarding knowledge. You mean like GoG being unwilling to share training, email, or much of anything else with peasants?

Faux News

Faux News Channel reports Duchy "couldn't be better".
Today Black Queen's spokesperson, GoG, in a rare appearance on the Faux News Channel Calamity and Homés show, said that the Black Queen's approval ratings were at an all time high. (Wait, that might actually be true. The new people haven't figured out who to blame yet.) GoG stated that the Black Queen has saved the Duchy several million dollars by eliminating Dotland last year. "But Dotland is still there" interjected Homés. "No, it's not" replied GoG, "It was eliminated that year. I announced it myself". "But..." Homés tried again. "I've been in the Sneak building and I've seen with my own eyes that Dotland no longer exists. " continued GoG. "How?!" said Homés. "By closing my eyes tightly, putting my fingers in my ears, and humming loudly, I was able to absolutely verify the non-existence of Dotland. If I had been able to hold my breath longer I wouldn't have smelled the potluck and birthday cake. Just adopt my philosophy of Hear No Dots, See No Dots, and Speak To No Dots and you'll be amazed at the things that vanish. " At that point, Homés threw down the mike and left the set muttering, "Yeah, like reality and common sense!" Calamity and GoG then spent a happy ten minutes debating the merits of humming loudly versus singing "la, la, la" and reminiscing about other things that could be made to non-exist like evolution, the budget deficit, and peasants.

Overheard in the Pentacle Office

"The white queen said we couldn't get rid of Dotland." mused the Black Queen.
"However, suppose Dotland were somehow destined to go away in the long
run. We could help them go away faster, couldn't we?" she continued.
"Oh, yes, boss! Yes, boss!" chortled GoG "Can I go tell them they are going away?"
"No!" exclaimed the Black Queen, "We can't let them find out yet! "
"Oh, please let me tell them. Please, please, please, puleeeeze" whined GoG.
"No!"repeated the Black Queen.
"Well, can I at least tell someone?"pleaded GoG.
"Oh, all right! You can tell the librarians that Dotland is going away. We've
stopped them from talking to each other anyway and all this ordering nonsense is keeping them too busy to talk to anyone else!"

What was the plan?

What was the plan when King Hairboy eliminated the Library Coordinator and the central library support budget 3 years ago?

Why did GoG tell everyone 2 years ago that Dotland was gone and all library support had to go through GoG?

Why were library meetings with anyone but GoG eliminated?

Why did the Black Dot Queen keep Dotland busy with "strategic planning" for a whole year and then drop the whole thing?

Why did the Duchy stop paying for Folly support at the same time they were trying to eliminate central library support? (It would seem that not supporting folly would be a GOOD thing, but if you are stuck with the folly anyway shouldn't you have some support and comfort to get you through it?)

Why was the book ordering electronic work transferred to the villages? (More about this later.)

Why was TiTs cut AFTER eliminating Folly support, most of Dotland, trying to eliminate Silver, and transferring the book ordering electronic work to the villages? Is the point to see that nothing in the library can function?

Why is the training offered to librarians only about classroom teaching and not about librarianship?

Why is there no training for peasants (beyond the Tropical Vacation Dotland snuck in at the beginning of the year)?

When does "I'm working on it" cease to be a plausible answer?

If the above actions are components of a coherent plan, where is that plan leading but to the conversion of teacher-librarians to classroom teachers only and to the elimination of school libraries in the Duchy.
(Yep, folks, I slept on it and I'm still not happy!)

Now about that question of transferring the book budgets to the village budgets. This was the process. Dotland had a salary budget of around $450,000 (the exact amount is in the 2005-2006 Budget Book online) and a supply budget of around $10,000 for supplies that would be bought centrally and sent to the villages. As soon as the new budget was approved each year Dotland was informed about the size of the library book budget. Dotland made sure that all outstanding financial obligations incurred last year by the village libraries would be paid and then divvied up the remainder among the villages and notified villages of how much they had to spend. The villages selected the library materials and sent the orders either to DotLand or directly to the vendor. Nearly all orders were handled electronically. Dotland was able handle the problems that we are now seeing in the villages. This is how it used to be.

Then the State decreed that the Duchy could only spend 35% of their budget on ADMINISTRATION, that is, Dot Castle salaries and expense and places like Busland and Dotland. So the Duchy decided that the book budgets had to be placed in the village budgets. OK, make the 2006-2007 Budget Book show the library book budget as part of the village budget. However, why do the orders have to be submitted, electronically, directly to already overworked departments in Dot Castle? Why can't the orders still be submitted, electronically, to Dotland, who could then use their accumulated expertise and experience to group them, get discounts, correct errors, receive shipments, catalog and process, etc. After all, the bank has most of our cash, we can't spend it without going through the bank with a check or an electronic transfer, but the IRS is never fooled into thinking that money is BELONGS to the bank. Why is the Duchy unwilling to admit that Dotland was only acting as a bank for the village libraries. Do you have an answer? I have an answer but I don't know if it's the right answer. The decision to force villages to handle their own orders can only be justified, financially or otherwise, if the intention is to completely eliminate Dotland. The White Queen has promised that Dotland will never... well hardly ever... well not this year at least...go away. What do you think?

State of the Duchy

It doesn't look good. There are still 16 villages without a peasant. The IDEA says she's having trouble finding peasants when they are paid so little and they'll have to provide their own begging bowl. We're told that the Duchy has done "strategic planning". If they planned this, why aren't they in jail? Surely planning this bad is against the law? Let's recap. They sent the book budgets to the villages to provide more site-based control to the village headmen. Without allowing any planning or training, the villages have been having some trouble dealing with this budget. It's the old comedy. The car is careening toward the cliff. The driver pulls the steering wheel off and hands it to the passenger, saying "Here, you steer." The least they could do is stop the car before they yank off the steering wheel! They cut Navy and Pink from Dotland saying that all of Dotland's services could be provided by the merchants, the Grand Union, and the venerable LOC. The merchants are saying "Who, us?" Some of the villages can't talk to the Grand Union. TiTS was also cut so they can't fix the Grand Union. They could ask Folly for help but that was cut too. And the LOC, well, if the LOC had records for all of OUR books and actually had appropriate Dewey numbers and didn't make mistakes and we could reliably download more than one record at a time, maybe. GoG, the head librarian of the massive Library of Misinformation, Disinformation, Fallacy, Error, and Downright Lies, chairwoman of the Web Nonsense committee and a leader of the Suppressing Useful Information Taskforce, has once again been erupting with misinformation and disinformation, mostly about Destiny. DYBITS!!!! We won't go into the rest of her errors. Do none of these strategic planners check ANYTHING?! Quite frankly, your faithful correspondent has seen this kind of behavior in the corporate world as well. It normally preceded the announcement that the corporate management had mysteriously vanished with the corporate assets. Have a good weekend, dear readers. I'm going to go sulk ...and possibly drink.

In Perfect

In Perfect every library would have all new books. In Perfect every book would be exactly the same size when you put it on the shelf. Of course, when you removed it from the shelf it would become exactly the right size for the reader. In Perfect the Library of Congress would have a record for every book in existence and that record would be, well, perfect. In Perfect the Library of Congress would not have 31 records with the author listed as (illustrator), or any records with the author listed as edited by or 8 records with the author listed as (author), . There wouldn't be any by Author, No. There wouldn't be 6 by (translator), and 30 by editor, . In Perfect you wouldn't have to download and import these perfect records. You could just wave the book at the computer and it would be automatically downloaded into your database. In Perfect, since Library of Congress records would be perfect, no record would ever have to be edited but if it did all Librarians and Peasants would be born knowing Marc cataloging. In Perfect books are shelved perfectly and inventories are instant and perfect. In Perfect, the Internet never goes down, the Union Catalog never goes down, the Intranet never goes down and there is never anything for Websense to block. But we don't live anywhere near perfect and Walgreens doesn't carry Marc records.

More about robes

The Design Committee for Silver's new robes met last night. The Committee consists of the new IDEA, GoG, the Lime Green Knight, and three librarians. No peasants. Methinks the actual users of Silver's services are somewhat underrepresented on this Committee, hmmm? Methinks if left up to GoG, Silver will be wearing (and living in) a cardboard box.

Robes: Design possibilities

Silver has been giving some thought to new robes. For example, there's the white number with the red sleeves from Christian Lacroix. Nice design, imposing enough, but maybe a little much for everyday work, maybe? From Vivienne Westwood, there'a a lovely grey. Right color, love the purple hair, a little too low cut to be dignified, hmmm? And then there's the little black and silver coat from Valentino. Silver will just take the coat, thank you very much, and forget the job!

Why is it so quiet in the Duchy?

It's very, very quiet in the Duchy these days. You might almost call it ominous. Of course, Dotland is quiet all the time without Pink and Navy, although Pink came back for visit today. However, even the villages and libraries seem very quiet. Several weeks ago the Black Queen called for meetings and focus groups and committees and possibly even covens but no one has seen any signs of even small committee meetings. And Silver has been wondering what happened to her promised new robes. Of course, they were to be designed by one of the committees. This disturbed some of Silver's friends. However, Silver reads Vogue. She knows that great costumes take collaboration, multiple brains, a gathering of specialized talents, the pattern maker, the seamstress, the bead embroidery specialists, the braid makers. However, there has been no sign of committees much less any braid making, sewing, weaving, dyeing or other design activity. Has the Black Queen managed to silence everyone by dangling committees in front of them? Is this the ominous silence of waiting for the Sword of Rightsizing and the Axe of Nickleby to fall? Or is it the grateful silence of villagers being let alone to do their jobs? But never mind all that. What happened to those robes?!

Battle Hymn of Black Dot Castle

Everybody was e-mail fighting
Those bytes were fast as lightning
It was really frightening
They fought with expert typing

She was a nasty Duchy Queen from nasty Duchy town
She was chopping them up and chopping them down
It's an ancient Duchy art and she certainly knew her part
From a slur into a slip and shooting from the hip

Everybody was e-mail fighting
Those bytes were fast as lightning
It was really frightening
They fought with expert typing

There was the Diva who's divine and a Queen with too much whine
They said here comes the White Queen, let's get it on now
They took a mouse and made a stand, started typing to beat the band
The typing made the network skip, now Outlook's on a brand new trip

Everybody was e-mail fighting
Those bytes were fast as lightning
It was really, really frightening
They fought with expert typing

Everybody was e-mail fighting
Those bytes were fast as lightning
Make sure you have expert typing
E-mail fighting, have to be fast as lightning

Turf Wars

The Black Queen has gotten territorial again and has been flinging pigeons like mad at The Diva over a small piece of real estate. The Black Queen thought she had the deal locked up but didn't bother with a title search. The Diva of StudioLand had a prior claim. When the Black Queen discovered this she attacked with full pigeon brigades, again without bothering to visit the site. In between warding off pigeons, the Diva called in the decorators, the painters, the florists, the artists, the musicians, the calligraphers and the party planners. The Queen said she needed the space for storing teachers. She must be thinking of really small teachers since it's a really small lot. By the time the Black Queen gets around to checking, The Diva will have erected a new museum on the site and will have a full tour schedule of educators and out of town luminaries waiting to see new space. The Black Queen is just too inattentive to keep up in the fast-paced Duchy real estate market.