Building a library with craft and guile

What I lack in integrity, I make up for in guile. I asked Janet whether it was possible to access the unspent monies to restock and build a modern literature library complete with DVDs.

Janet was a cool customer. She was the type of woman I would like on deck if I was going to sail around The Horn. Steely. Full of resolve. 

“Yes, I think that could be done.”

We were a team, and the university valued teamwork.

In October 1998 I prepared one of the largest single book orders in the history of the university. I ordered $27,000 worth of books split between a large Australian owned-bookstore in the arts precinct and a few other smaller bookshops.

By May 1999 Janet and her cabal of secret literature-loving librarians had categorised and shelved the books. They had been paid for by the unspent book budgets. The head librarian and her coterie of passive aggressives in building 101 were none the wiser.

Between August 1999 and September 2000 I purchased $50,000 worth of books. The librarians had to order more stacks and rearrange the library to fit them in. Don't you love that new book smell? They were delicious and gleamed like apples in the sun.

Even though the university was now in phase seven of its Orwellian audit on “where money was coming from and where it was going”, they still had not yet twigged that there was a cell of book buying anarchists wearing sensible shoes in their midst. This was double good.

By the end of 2002 I had bought $120,000 worth of books and DVDs. Janet resigned to go sailing with her husband. She was a noble woman. Devious but noble.

It was about this time that my patrons fell Roman-like on their swords or simply got better jobs in the corporate sector. I too thought my best work was done. My old humanities school was quickly turning into an agency of the electronic games industry.

On my last day I went to the library and walked down aisle upon aisle of new books. Their colourful spines ran riot under the fluorescent lights. I had done good by doing bad and I was free.