16: Now We Have The Internet Librarians Are Going Extinct

Mike was in the computer room when the noise started. He had been fixing something that was wrong with the server. Something was wrong with the library server almost every day. He was starting to think 'sabotage' when the music started and he wasn't able to think about anything else.

Now the music has been echoing through the library and his skull for a few minutes, his normal thoughts are returning to him. He stands up and listens at the door. The staff seem to have everything in hand, although several borrowers are still walking around aimlessly. The borrowers remind him of the extra football players in the game he used to play on his Commodore 64 when he was younger. You only got to be in charge of one player and move them around on the screen towards the goal with your joystick. The other players just walked up and down the pitch on invisible grid-lines, and kicked the ball away from you if your path intersected with theirs. Even if they were on your team. It wasn't a good game, and he prefers Championship Manager now, but all the same, the borrowers look like that and no-one seems to be looking after them.

Privately, he thinks, 'that is typical of them,'. He doesn't like the library staff. They make fun of his tee-shirt (it says: 'Ctrl-Alt-Delete' on it and it was a Christmas present and there is Nothing Wrong With It. They only talk to him when they have a problem. Some of them can't even double click properly. He knows for a fact that Linda has a problem with click-and-drag, and that she blames the computer, and indirectly, him for this.

Mike is responsible for training the staff in ICT. He makes them do ECDL tests. He knows they hate him for this more than they hate his tee-shirt.

Mike doesn't think the music is that bad, although he can see the scattering effect it is having on most of the others. Mike is able to let the music fade into the background. He doesn't know why he can do this and the others can't. It is because he has been playing computer games with electronic music tracks on them for most of his life. He is almost immune to sounds.

Mike packs away his computer fixing tools and slots them into his tool belt. He reboots the computer and clicks the little blue 'e'. So much for reference books and information professionals. He is going to go on Wikipedia and find out what is going on.