Twas the night before migration, when all through ‘brary
Not a creature was stirring, not even Homeless Harry.
The doors were all locked and the reading room bare,
In hopes the IT department soon would be there.

The good books were nestled all snug on their carts,
They seemed random to those without library smarts.
With Starbucks in hand, the IT crew stood tall,
The director had retired to sleep through it all.

When up at the front desk there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the server room to see what was the matter.
Away from my command prompt I flew like a flash,
A sprint down the stairs—a librarian dash.

The monitors on the new glass-topped tables did glow
Like the lights on the stage of a cheap Vegas show.
When what should appear as I wandered the stacks,
But a fancy new Prius, and eight geeks with Macs.

With a spanking new system, all open and slick,
I knew in a moment it must be a trick.
More rapid than vendors their improvements they came,
The geeks whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

“Now Facebook! now, Flickr! now Tagger and Mash-up!
On, MySpace! On, NextGen, on Filter and Pop-up!
To the top ARLs! to the Publics and all!
We’ll launch this new system and the others will fall!”

As old systems that before the new one comes in,
Make new things look sexy, and cool, without sin.
So into the ‘brary this new system came,
With facets and word clouds and nothing the same.

And then, with a sense of unwilling surrender,
I heard through the door the sound of our vendor.
As I shrugged to the others, and was turning around,
Through the side door the CEO came with a bound.

He was dressed in light khakis, and golf shirt with logo,
In his ear was his Bluetooth, on his belt some new gizmo.
An iron-clad contract he held in his hand,
And he looked like a hustler, all cap-toothed and tanned.

He feared not the new system, though to him it was strange,
He relied on the fact that all staff hated change!
With his droll little mouth drawn up like a bow,
I could have sworn that he whispered, “Pshaw two point oh.”

The strength of his system, he defended till death,
It would do us just fine till we drew our last breath.
He’d fix all of our problems. What—tape, string, and glue?
But we’ll wait months and months and then pay for them too!

His demo was snappy and hot off the shelf,
But I wept as I watched it, in spite of myself!
A twitch in his eye and the cock of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had something to dread.

We’d be stuck with his system, till nigh kingdom come,
And we’d wait for the features, but I stood deaf and dumb.
With a pat on my back and what looked like a wink,
I’d agreed to his upgrade before I could think.

He sprang to his Hummer, to the geeks gave the finger,
But they would not go lightly, for years they would linger.
But I heard him exclaim, 'ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy upgrade to all, and to all a good night!”

Happy Holidays everyone!

See last year's "The Grump Who Stole Libraries."