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May 15, 2006
Bloggington on Sea : Communications
In an earlier entry I explained that Mr Grimsdyke, the council accountant, sits in his tower on Grimsdyke hill watching the library service and that he uses a slide rule and a telescope to help him.
The slide rule is used to hold the window open, not just because the sun always shines in Bloggington on Sea, but also it has been the tradition that Mr Grimsdyke receives daily performance figures from all the libraries.
Every day, in the evening as they close, each library logs their day's figures with Mr Grimsdyke. He knows how many visitors, loans, computer logs, children and senior citizens have visited or used or borrowed items from each library, every day. He also knows what costs have been incurred and what orders for stock have been placed and what commitments have been made for future expenditure.
In the old days the information was communicated by semaphore or flashing beacons, which is why he has a telescope. Sometimes he even has been known to use pigeons, although these upset Perkins the library cat. Nowadays they use their intranet which has a web page for each library. Each library can see their day's performance on the graph and compare it to the performance planned in their budget.
Posted by Perkins at May 15, 2006 7:02 PM