Questions for the Black Queen

The Black Queen has repeatedly told Dotland that there is no Library Services in the Duchy. This is pretty much true. Even though the Queen's colleagues speak strongly about service and about having a customer service attitude in the Duchy, the Queen is not about service. Librarians are pretty service oriented, always trying to help people find things out. That's probably why the Queen would prefer that there be no libraries. However, what the Black Queen says that what she means is that there can be no central Department of Library Services because all expenditures must be made at the sites and all decisions must be made at the sites. It's called Site Based Management. If we look at the budget we see that, sure enough, under M&O there is no department of Library Services. Instead there are catalogers working for the Queen in the Department of Teaching, Learning and General Mismanagement. However, if we look at the capital budget, there IS a department of Library Services. (No employees, but they have capital?) The capital budget allocates a couple of pittances for library type things and then 4.8 MILLION for "Technology Plan - Curriculum". Could this be why the district inventory lists pages and pages and pages of classroom equipment that "belongs" to the non-existent Library Services? If it's classroom technology and all decision-making and budgeting is supposed to be site based, why isn't that 4.8 million in the site budgets and that equipment in the site inventories? Is it possible that while the Black Queen wants village headmen to be able to choose between a librarians and a classroom teacher, she doesn't want them to be able to choose between technology and, say, adequate classroom supplies? Could it be that she thinks her beloved technology might be rejected? We're not likely to get answers to any of these questions since the Black Queen is not inclined toward open communication with anyone and certainly not the Dots of Dotland. The Black Queen says "Perception is everything." The problem is that it is very hard to control someone else's perception. The Queen tries to control perception by controlling information. This pretty much ensures that she will be perceived as a micro-managing bitch. Hey, I guess perception is everything!
On a sad and serious note, one of the Bus Monitors died today in an accident near Dotland. In a heartbeat the day changed, lives changed. We really do have to live as if every day will be our last.