The London-based utopian librarian returns to endure management prose and to imagine the wonders of a labour-saving, shelf-stacking robo-picker. Throw in a Dickens bi-centennial celebration, a bargain-hunting council and the "the old ethnics" to understand the surreal world of public services that
What is a public library for? Costa coffee and "bums on seats"? or the promise of a better world? The managerialised nightmare of a London council's cost-cutting misunderstandings is glimpsed at through the deep stacks by a not-yet-defeated librarian and idealist
