h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*A flashing envelope appears on the mailserver monitor with an irritating but persistant chime at the same time*

*should the envelope be clicked on the following message will appear...

'Hi, Lil, Styx Jr, Kudos and I are all in one piece. We wish we were there. Love from us all, Caer. PS don't worry about Lil and I being here as well as there, it's that clever Infinity Engine wotsit'

....email message ends*

*should the recipient of the message right click and then click on properties the message would appear to have come from ABH's Cube Zone from teh Andromeda-Way Prison at A1074494*

What a time to be out of commission!

Where's that bot? The door is flapping. Heaven only knows what's going to turn up in here.

*grabs a bag of chocolate covered almonds out of her desk and heads through the rift in search of Mindspring*

Here, baby. Look what Auntie Hyp has for you. You can have one if you come back inside. But not the whole bag. You know what happened last time. I'm barely out of the woods for that.

*picks up Mindspring, enters the portal and secures the door*

Ok, here's your reward. One chocolate almond.
One shouldn't do much damage. Then we'll go find Matina and have her make you a big yummy spinach salad.

Now I have to find that wayward bot and see if we can get that prison cleared out.

Oh, well done. *notices Mindspring beginning to wriggle as the carbs take effect* Need any help with Springie?

*comes into library and walks along shelves then sees rift*
*hunkers down in front of rift and eats empty sweet wrappers on floor*
*watches for a while*

Go there later
heh heh heh
*scurries out*

Something seems strange here, but I can't put my finger on it. The portal door is secure and everything seems to be in its proper place, still..............

I wish the Jasper Fforde's were't released in the UK weeks before they became available in the US. It makes me uneasy not knowing what to expect. And with Eleven vanishing the way he has, well, I'm just generally uneasy about the whole thing.

Now someone has been in here. I can sense it. I'm going to change the password on the portal door. If Eleven shows back up, he'll have to ring the bell like everyone else. I'll feel better when the passsword is changed.

*sees Hypatia through the glass in the portal door and waves*

No time to come in - am currently on the scent of a pterodactyl from the lost continent.

*comes waddling in, having been bored stiff by lack of activity in the Atelier*

*sniffs in the air*

*flaps past, having decided it's high time he checked out the Atelier's library properly, not just the reading room*

Well, well...

*the world's only librarian tawny owl has never seen the like in his life*

I shall come back later.

*flaps out again*

Has anyone seen my copy of the Library of Congress Classifications? Ohh, there's no one here. There's a feather on the floor though. Hmm. *looks through glass panels at rift* Very swirly. Is that good or bad?

*meanders out back to the Salon*

*if he was here, David B would be wondering why anyone would ever want the LC classifications when Dewey Decimal is so much nicer. But he's not here, so he isn't wondering that at all*

*in her typical librarian way, Hypatia can sense a classification discussion in the offing and immediately perks up*

Hello! Is someone here?

I really should do some dusting in here. What's that mess on the floor near the Rift portal? It almost looks like someone has used the door recently. But that isn't possible. Eleven and I are the only ones with the password and he's been busy in the lab with Affy for weeks.

*walks over to the computer that controls the portal door and makes a quick search for recent activity*

Six trips in the past three months, five of them with proper paperwork and authorizations. And one without. Let's just check the coordinates here....

The Library of Doom?

Eleven!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think I heard David's voice in my head. Is it the nearness of the Rift? Anyway, I prefer Dewey infinitely myself, but the library I want to get a job at uses LC. So...

Hey, what am I doing back in here? I was heading for the Salon!

*brightens when she sees Agapanthus*

I refuse to switch from Dewey to LC. Dewey is my friend. And unless you have an enormous collection, Dewey is sufficient to the day.

I'm a Dewey baby. When faced with all the Bliss stuff in Senate House (University of London's Main Library) I used to follow known English students to find the right books.

And I did once have a go at sorting my personal collection into Dewey but as 99% of it fell in the 800s, I gave over.

Is the Rift supposed to look like that, by the way?

I sometimes become a little teary-eyed when I think about Dewey. It's a marvellous system. No need to muck about with LC classifications. I have always thought that they came up with LC just to cause trouble. Oh, I've heard all of the arguments and justifications, but they are all sooooooooo invented and overstated and anal.

Yes, the Rift is supposed to look like that. Lovely, isn't it? It can become mesmerizing. When I've had a particularly rough day I like to come in and just sit and look at it. It can be very relaxing - sort of like staring at an aquarium. Plus, you never know what...or who...might pass by and give a wave.

*stops on her way from her apartments to the salon* Did you say there's been some Rift activity?

*sees feather on floor next to LC classifications* That's an owl feather. Do you think David B is processing an interlibrary loan? *peers over Ag's shoulder* Oh, it looks like that if you don't have a password. Doesn't deter owls, apparently.

And I agree with y'all about Dewey. Have I ever mentioned that I did 3 years of library science at Kutztown University?

*flies in just in time to hear the conversation*

I didn't fly through the rift. I've had a look, but didn't go through. I hope there are no ducks or silly students rampaging through the atelier.

I didn't know you were a library-type person, Lil. We seem to have a statistically improbable number of us in the salon.

*perches on the dictionaries shelf*

*floating in, temporarily taking a break from wading through Atelier backlog*

I've probably mentioned this before, but during my 'college' years I spent so much time at the local library that people started taking me for one of the librarians. I even knew the answers to most questions I got...

I was never a librarian, I only did three years of coursework. Then I left for England and started all over again at Birmingham University with a different major.

Hi Titania! There's a new adventure in the offing, but probably not till October, at the rate things are going.