Dotland Daily Advertising Supplement

Is your dot agitated? Do you grind your teeth at night? Do you gring them in the daytime? Do you need more of my little white pills? Come see me tomorrow at Purple's Plethoria of Pills, Dotland's apothecary.
Dr. Purple

Unkept promises

I have been thinking of the number of things the Duchy libraries have been promised over the last year. We were promised that the Office Managers had all been well trained to handle the library purchase orders that they had never had to handle before. Not only had they not been trained, it hadn't even been mentioned to many of them. We were told that principals had been told about the new policies with respect to library books and materials. Apparently not. Silver and the White Tornado were told that full-time jobs for them both would be advertised by the end of October, 2006. Really. We were told that there would be a new organization chart That was supposed to happen a couple of weeks ago. These are just the big promises. There have been innumerable small promises that are kind of like the rental car ads...Not exactly. Looking at the promises made by the Black Queen and the success rate of keeping those promises, I can see only two possibilities..that the Black Queen is hopelessly and completely ineffectual or the the Black Queen is a ...never mind. I realize that in the Duchy it isn't the CREAM that rises to the top, but even so, I have difficulty believing that someone completely ineffectual could have risen so close to the top in such a relatively short time. Both the White Tornado and the Lime Green Knight assure us that the Black Queen is working very hard for libraries. Everyone can see that the White Tornado IS working very hard for libraries and we can all see the results. The Lime Green Knight is slightly less visible (funny, you would think Lime Green would always show up really well) however, we can see some results from him as well. The Black Queen, though... The White Tornado and the Lime Green Knight tell us the Black Queen is working very hard for us. How do they know this? The Black Queen has told them it is so and how could they doubt her? The work of the Black Queen doesn't seem to visible to us mere mortals. Perhaps it is virtual. Virtual jobs for the Library Coordinator and Library Technical Coordinator. Virtual office managers trained to handle virtual purchase orders. Leading perhaps to virtual librarians and peasants working in virtual libraries with a virtual budget? Virtual office managers trained to handle the virtual library purchase orders. The real office managers would, of course, handle the real budget and the schools would continue with their real work, which is, as we all know, testing.
TGIF!

Quest for the elusive Job

Silver and Purple are on a Quest for elusive "Technical Coordinator Job". The White Tornado insists that it really does exist. Silver is doubtful but agreed to keep an open mind about it. The White Tornado was able to obtain a description of the "Job" and Silver and Purple pored over it. They were puzzled about some parts of the document which described the "Job" as having the "ability to mange software". Neither Silver nor Purple have mange but both agreed they could probably acquire it. Sage suggested Pima County Animal Control as a possible source of mange. Purple thought possibly her neighbor's dog has mange but said Silver would have to get her own mange. It might all be a moot point anyway. Silver just came back from Job Lookout Point and instead of seeing "Jobs" she saw this

Silver doesn't think this is a "Job" but hasn't seen a real "Job" in a very long time.

Mythical Beasts

Two of the most talked about and least seen mythical entities are the Library Coordinator Job and the Library Technical Coordinator Job. Rumors about these beasts have been circulating the whole school year. The Black Queen has assured the White Tornado that the two "Jobs" are real and would be visible to all this weekend. Well, the weekend isn't over yet. Maybe they will suddently materialize. Silver is taking a Missouri (show me) attitude toward the whole thing.
The White Tornado, Silver, and Sage have been agitating the village librarians about Call Numbers. Several years of not allowing the village librarians to Organize has taken a toll of the libraries. In addition, GoG has been holding classes, teaching the basics of Library Management. This is really unfortunate, since GoG has never practiced Library Management herself. She's probably quite expert at bookstore management (She works for or owns part of a bookstore the Duchy buys from, can you say "conflict of interest"?) but Library Management is a total mystery to her. As a librarian, GoG is a hedge witch. However, I think that hedge witch might just be a disguise. I think she might be an agent of KAOS, Kommittee to Abolish Organized Systems, a highly secret, very dangerous, anti-library, terrorist organization. Was the librarian who shelved the books by size was influenced by GoG or possibly even a protege? If there were no more libraries, more people would buy books.

Searching for the Computer Whisperer

The stories about the Computer Whisperer are legion. The Computer Whisper walks into the room and the computer starts working. When you've lost all hope of recovering your lost document, you feel a presence, a gray shadow at your elbow and your document appears back on the screen. Just as you hit the Delete key, you glimpse a quick movement. When you look back at the screen you notice that you would have deleted your whole database instead of just a temporary file. Some say that all of the stories can't possibly be true. Some say no one person could do all those things. They say there must be lots of Computer Whisperers, an organization like the Jedi Knights, years of study and testing. Some think Silver is a Computer Whisperer. Silver says she's not. Silver says "A Computer Whisperer must be Clear of Mind and Pure of Heart. No one who works for She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed can retain clarity or purity." She is right about that. The Black Queen is surrounded by a miasma. Everyone it touches quickly becomes cloudy in their mind and petty and vengeful in their heart.

The Computer Whisperer

The Duchy becomes increasing chaotic. The villages are promised Central Cataloging but Central Cataloging is but a myth from long ago. The villagers are promised Huge Savings with Central Ordering while the White Queen assures Dotland that Central Ordering is truly dead and will come no more. The villagers are also promised Huge Savings from tracking down students with overdue books. The Committee whose existence and makeup is secret seems to have misinterpreted some of the Destiny sales brochures. They believe that Destiny comes with bloodhounds. Actually Destiny can produce food for bloodhounds, if the Duchy happened to have any. However, breeding bloodhounds would be a job for the Mojave Guild, a small, select Guild that doesn't accept quests or requests, even from secret committees. So no bloodhounds, no tracking, no Huge Savings? Silver is promised new robes but still trails desolately around in rags. The White Tornado is promised rest and Gardening but is still whirling frantically around the Duchy looking for the way out. Looking on the bright side, if Dotland is sent to the Compost Heap, perhaps WT can use it for her garden. Although Sage warned that composting catalogers could result in toxic byproducts making it unsuitable for home use. The Village of Cajero can no longer talk to the GUCCI (Grand Union etc. etc.) . The Village of the Green Tree lost a hub today and took 20 other villages with it. This all sounds like a job for The Computer Whisperer.

Welcome to Lucky Times Services

The Duchy is being reorganized - again -. Duke Phfffr is retiring again in a year and there will be a new Duke (or King). The new guy will probably want to rearrange the furniture as well. This could all be considered a waste of resources but I guess the Duchy has a patriotic duty to make a contribution to global warming and destruction of trees as well as wasting the taxpayer's money. In the reorganization supposedly LibraryLand and Dotland will be under the Department of CS (Customer Services). Currently the Duchy has no customer services. The new arrangement would seem to imply that they plan to develop some customer services. Based on past experience the Dots are doubtful about the Castle's ability to recognize either customers or services. In order to be prepared the Dots are working on services of their own, for example, Lucky Times Escort Services. Was this what the White Tornado had in mind when she requested a private office with a locking door?

Press Release

From the Association for the Preservation of Clueless and Incompetent Administrators for immediate release.

The Association of the Preservation of Clueless and Incompetent Administrators is pleased to announce the opening of a new refuge in Southern Arizona. The plight of these creatures is just heart-breaking. They are unable to communicate, unable to obtain food, usually unable to interact meaningfully with others, even others of their own kind.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q Was the refuge created because of habitat loss or overbreeding?
A. Neither. Habitat for incompetent administrators actually seems to be increasing. As for overbreeding, well, there's the competence problem with that. No, the real problem is that these administrators are just no longer able to survive in the wild. By creating this refuge, we are providing them with a protected area where they can interact as much as possible with others of their kind. There are a suitable number of attendants to help them send e-mail, schedule meetings, get food and other normal activities. This is an open refuge so they will still feel like they are in the real world but they will be protected from the consequences of their actions.
Q. Will the public also be protected from those consequences?
A. No. Making irresponsible decisions is instinctive. They can't help it. It's important for the public to carefully evaluate any e-mail or documents that might issue from the refuge. Usually they should just be ignored.
Q. Will it be possible to visit the refuge and observe these administrators?"
A. Oh, yes. Visitors are completely welcome during daylight hours. The new refuge is located at 1010 E. Tenth and is open to the public from 8 am to 5 pm, although visitors are warned that many of the administrators nest at odd times and might be unavailable for viewing.
Q. Is it possible to interact with these administrators?
A. Not really. They can sometimes mimic normal human behavior but it is not believed that they understand what they are doing.

Book Talk
One of the seasons hottest new movies (Literally! Have you seen those hunks?) 300, is now out in graphic novel form. Some early reviewers had reservations about the number of dangling p... appendages, however, an experienced librarian pointed out the opportunity to use the graphic novel as a leadin to a lesson on dangling participles. The popular graphic novel series Ranman
was also extolled for its contribution to intercultural proficiency by highlighting differing cultural norms with respect to nudity.

Meeting News
The newly formed Duchy Customer Service and Reading Room Department will holding focus groups to determine their mission, vision, strategic goals, and color of uniform and cap. The working group mission statement is "Knowledge comes from books. Over 3,000,000 loaned." Cap and uniform color is being hotly debated as is the question of whether or not to have a smiley face on the name badge. There is general agreement that, unlike the post office, the take a number system should be used. This will mean a capital expenditure for a take a number machines for each library, er, Reading Room but that can easily come from the money saved by not buying Destiny. Wait, they did buy Destiny? Damn, how did that happen? Are those guys getting out of the refuge again?

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Last night the Duchy Bored approved Destiny. Our fate awaits us. Let's take a look at what was said.
A committee made up of librarians, a bookstore manager and TUSD’s central cataloger met to discuss upgrading the district’s library automation system. What librarians? The librarians that I know were all voted off the island.
At the same time, many of our high schools especially, have been concerned about the tracking of textbooks and the ability to know exactly where we have extra books that could be used for increased enrollment at another school. This is completely true, so true that several high schools have already purchased, out of the school budget, a program called Blue Bear* to manage their textbooks. Maybe there should have been more than one bookstore manager on the committee. Or maybe it was a Borders bookstore manager instead of a Duchy bookstore manager.
Centralized textbook management and cataloging will eliminate the need for site level entry. Who will be doing this centralized management and cataloging? The Black Queen has repeatedly told Dotland that all money had to be spent in the schools, not centrally. She already eliminated one third of Dotland.
Libraries will extend into homes. We could have been doing this for years but TS wouldn't allow it. What policy has changed here?
The student interface within the electronic card catalog will make it easier for students to search for, locate and reserve books. Liar, liar, etc. The interface is very similar to what we already have.
Centralized cataloging and information processing will save hundreds of hours of work for librarians on-site. The time that is saved will be spent working with students. Let's see now, her Blackness has attempted to move ALL of the ordering, processing, and cataloging out of Dotland and dump it on the librarians and school offices. She has not been completely successful but not for lack of trying. Again, who is going to be doing this centralized cataloging and information processing, the spectral ghosts of Dotland?
Schools will be able to view the textbook inventories of each school, making it easier to borrow or swap textbooks. What's going to usher in this new era of interschool cooperation?
Destiny’s centralized system will let the District share expensive instructional materials across the district, helping stretch the media and textbook budgets. Yeah, right. School A will definitely be willing to loan school B their expensive resource purchased with their own limited school budget. Also obviously they could be doing this with the current software...if the will were there. The technology has been there for years.

It appears that once again the Duchy is buying technocrap as a substitute for fixing the district peopleware. ALL and I do mean ALL of the things Destiny can do could have been done with our current software and some changes of personnel and policy. Oh, wait. Destiny will allow us to do our Duchy work at home, after hours, of course. We never do that now, do we? And we really, really want to do that, don't we? Liar, Liar!!

Let's hear it for the remaining dwarfs of Dotland, Clueless, Mystified, Puzzled and Baffled!




*Normally I don't use real names here to allow reasonable protection or at least plausible deniability in a duchy that has had a century of political infighting to hone the bloodless blood feud to a high art. However, I have so much trouble believing that anyone would buy (or sell) accounting software called Blue Bear. That must be made up!

Get your phone service from Verizon, not Duchy

I listened to the Bored meeting tonight. I guess they approved the purchase of Destiny but it's always hard to tell since all of the important or interesting stuff is always buried in the consent agenda which is the part they vote on without discussion. They did object to a bid for a school playground being rushed through and they did object to not being "properly briefed" on another item, there was apparently no objection to the "Resource Management System". So were they briefed on the "Resource Management System"? If they were, why was it a secret from those of us who will be working with it?
The Bored also did not discuss the fact that Tolson Elementary was without telephones all day yesterday and today. Yesterday the school was closed and the only person at risk was a TUSD employee. That was only a little lawsuit waiting to happen. However, today the school was open and children were at risk. (Much big potential for lawsuits.) Were the parents warned in advance so they could keep their children home? The office manager used a cell phone to call the T from TiTS and was told to turn in a work order and they'd get around to Tolson eventually. Guess Tolson should have gotten their phone service from Verizon (all of those people following you around, available to call 911 in an emergency) instead of from the T from TiTS.

The Gathering Storm

I forgot to mention that if you want to know what happens at a Bored meeting but don't want to have to get there early in order to sit in an uncomfortable chair in a crowded room for several hours, you can listen to the Bored meeting on the computer in real time at this link http://tusd.k12.az.us/contents/govboard/gbmeetings.html
Click on the link after 6:30 and you can hear the meeting live.
While we're talking about links, you have to watch this video..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFAWR6hzZek
about a Help Desk problem. Dotland has been waiting for over a month for their new workstations to be set up. Today the White Tornado announced that the reason for the delay is that TS (formerly TiTS) is shorthanded. NO! You don't say! I guess the Black Queen has gotten her hands on the Sword of RightSizing again. Duke Phfffr should keep it (or her) locked up more securely! Silver asked the White Tornado how TS was going to be able to cope with installing Destiny if they were so shorthanded. The White Tornado told Silver to have faith. Silver went away muttering "Faith is a poor substitute for planning."
I guess TS should be pronounced "tis", although "tisn't" would probably be more descriptive.
For those who are interested there are some new Dotland Quilts posted.

Procuring and other vices

The White Tornado has told us that on Tuesday, April 10, the Duchy Bored will make the decision to buy Destiny for the libraries. (Actually, the decision is secret, so White Tornado is not allowed to know that, but we all assume it.) If you look at the Bored Agenda you will see why they are bored, but you will also see RFP No. 07-94-12 labeled Resource Management System. Is that it? Why doesn't it mention libraries anywhere? If I google resource management system, I get a lot of hits from construction companies and a few more from networking companies, none from library automation vendors. However, we'll assume that the Black Queen hasn't once again lied to the White Tornado (Silver's "new" robes) and that RFP No. 07-94-12 is for libraries. Let's go over the normal RFP process. When a public agency wants to buy something expensive, they have to publicly ask for bids and then pick from the bidders (or start over). The last time the Duchy bought library automation, a committee got together, wrote an RFP (Request for Proposal), Duchy Purchasing sent it to a bunch of library vendors as well as posting it publicly somewhere. They got back responses and gave them to the library committee. The library committee went over the responses and picked what seemed to be the best vendor. The committee was pretty much self-selected, anyone who wanted to join in was allowed. Silver and Gold had conflicts of interest and couldn't be on the committee. This fall, the Black Queen again asked for volunteers to be on a committee. Silver had resolved the conflict of interest and volunteered this time along with a reasonable sampling of others from all levels. Gold was semi-retired and didn't want to make choices that others would have to live with. (Of course, that particular ethic has never bothered the Black Queen or GoG, or the Lime Green Knight, has it?) The committee met, looked over Destiny, decided that they could probably live with it...but they had some questions that needed resolution before a final decision was made. They wanted to see a real test of the system on the Duchy's network. In due course, the Lime Green Knight announced that there would be an RFP. The committee waited to be called together again to write the RFP and then evaluate the results...and waited and waited. The committee has not yet been called together again. However, Tuesday the Bored is supposed to be voting on the decision made by "the committee". Who? What? Since the decision was not made by the committee that was formed to make the decision, who did make it? Who was the RFP sent to? What companies sent responses back? How many responses were there? When the White Tornado found out that an RFP relating to libraries was being evaluated, she made an effort to be part of that evaluation and was told that the RFP responses were Classified and she didn't Need to Know. What? By law, all of this has to been made public after the Bored votes on Tuesday. By then it will be a little too late won't it? Has the Bored been allowed to see the RFP? Maybe they don't Need To Know, either. Does the Bored know and approve of all of this secrecy? Does Duke Phfffr? We were promised a committee decision made by members of the real library community. Was this decision made by members of the real library community? Who are they?

One of the big issues with library automation currently is single centralized database or separate site databases. We currently have separate independent site databases. From so many standpoints, a central database makes more sense. Of course, pooling library orders and submitting them centrally makes more sense, too, and look what the Black Queen did with that. The big drawback to a central system is that it depends absolutely on the quality of the whole Duchy network, especially the connections to the Duchy castle. Currently if a school server goes done, it has no impact on the other libraries. If the Duchy Castle's connections go down, well, everything generally runs a little smoother without the spam issuing from the castle regularly. With the ONE and ONLY library database sitting in the Castle's servers, when the Castle connections go down, all 105 libraries will also go down. Shouldn't this have been discussed by the committee, if they had been allowed to meet? Just to make you have even more confidence in our leaders, have you noticed that the Duchy Job Openings page has been down more often than not? The Monday communique had the wrong links for the BIG back to school conference. It took me multiple tries to get the Bored agenda because the agenda page was inaccessible. TiTS has lost multiple employees, a director, and a T. They are now only TS. Have you seen many TS jobs posted (assuming the jobs page is up)? Doesn't that mean that TS is extremely shorthanded, shortheaded, and shortlettered, (maybe even shortsheeted)?

Wait! I understand it! It's in the Black Queen's Top Secret Management Handbook. If 100 library databases have 100 computer problems in a year, then 1 library database will only have 1 computer problem in a year and obviously fixing that 1 problem can be outsourced to Circuit City. Maybe we can apply the same logic to Dotland. Dotland, with 6 employees, was ordering for 105 libraries and created around 500 requisitions. Therefore, each school ordering for themselves would only need to create about 3/4 of a requisition each. (If you want to work it out for youself, 6 employees times 105 libraries is 630. 500 reqs divided by 630 is .79 or about 3/4) Since it's not possible to create 3/4 of a requisition, libraries can wait and only order every other year or 2 orders every 4th year. 2 reqs every 4 years is not an onerous burden for school offices. No wonder the Black Queen wants to get rid of Dotland. (We'll set this segment to the song "New Math" by Tom Lehrer. )

The Black Queen's easy 5 step plan for eliminating libraries

Step 1. Eliminate library leadership and library advocacy. King Hairboy took care of this one for the Black Queen.
Step 2. Convince principals that library staff must not be allowed out of the villages. If possible, make sure library staff teach reading for 2 to 4 hours a day. This will keep them from having the time or opportunity to enter conspiracies to actually improve libraries. If you make them teach a reading block in the library that has the double benefit of tying up the librarians time and making sure no one else can use the library as a library.
Step 3. Make the libraries do all of their own purchasing paperwork. You can use site-based budgeting as an excuse. Tell the librarians the the village offices know exactly how to handle the paperwork. Make sure you DON'T tell the offices how to handle the paperwork. If necessary keep changing procedures until ordering becomes impossible.
Step 4. Eliminate all central support of libraries. Again, you can use site-based budgeting as the excuse. It will work better if you eliminate most central support of technology at the same time. Remember to reserve a little bit of technology support for step 5.
Step 5. Buy a new library automation program designed to run centrally. This is where your reserved techies come in. You need to have enough techies left to intall the new program and remove the old programs...but not enough techies to make the new program run. Once the new program is in place, you can get rid of the remaining techies. After all, you don't intend for anyone to actually use this program.

At this point, any librarians who haven't already retired will be too tired and discouraged to mount any opposition when you point out to the Duchy Bored that libraries have become unused spaces (step 2) full of out-of-date material (step 3) where no one can check out books any way (step 5). Getting the Bored to turn over the library budgets to you for "more appropriate" spending should be a cakewalk.