Wheeling Jesuit University/Legal System/Operation Reverse Manifest Destiny
Conceived in late 2005, Operation Reverse Manifest Destiny was the brainchild of Smelly Bison, the head librarian of the Library of the Damned. It’s goals were rather simple, reverse manifest destiny, and yet the plan itself was complicated, confusing and in all probability, nonexistent.
A Plan Is Made[edit | edit source]
In the fall of 2005, having secured her position in the Library of the Damned, Smelly Bison decided that this director business was a lot of work. Fearing the expanding book collection was only going to add to her woes, she came up with a plan to ensure the book collection of the library was reduced down to a point where no one would need to even stop by. The idea functioned on several assumptions, one that the student body could actually read and that if they could, no one would want to read the companion novel to the movie Glitter.
Her conviction was further strengthened after she left the car running in the garage with the door down. Before paramedics brought her back from her vision, she was told she must cleanse the library of all the “disgusting literature and repair the stacks.” While the spirits were referring to the section containing the log books from the Fed Acker Huang Observatory as well as the book shelves held together loosely by duct tape and popsicle sticks, she interpreted it to be ‘get ride of the ugly looking books and remove books so that they are all symmetrical and balanced.
Make It So[edit | edit source]
Drawing on the popularity of the "literature bonfire nights" under the leadership of then President Father Rom, Smelly Bison began to remove book from the shelves seemingly at random. However, as any good historian will tell you, things never happen in a vacuum, and while Smelly Bison may have thought her selections random and therefore above suspicion, her removal choices seemed to coincide with the selection of thesis topics that year for a number of departments. Since her previous assumptions that the student body couldn’t read were based off of her experience of being the faculty advisor to the Zombie Club, she found it rather puzzling why all these thesis students kept asking for these books. There weren’t any pictures in them as she had flipped through to be extra sure.
As the situation worsened, she received support from the administration for her progressive handling of the libraries catalogue. She was awarded the Medal of Good Think by El Presidente for her efforts to “make it easier for future generations of students when getting a book on a given topic by removing the tyranny of choice. With just one book available for checkout on any given subject, the student’s lives are simplified and they can devote more time to other constructive activities.”
Defeat[edit | edit source]
However, many in the student body were not amused by the situation and many took action. Book hoarding began to be a common practice and as a result of the problems in the Library of the Damned, the Ohio County Library recorded its first visitor in early 2006 (there is some evidence they were just looking for a restroom).
One such student, Dr. Ubermann, member of the Churchill Society, set about saving the library. By convincing Smelly Bison that another vision, this time brought on by burning Styrofoam in her office, told her to cease her operation at WJU and that she was to go to Hong Kong. Smelly Bison left WJU that summer and was arrested in Hong Kong later that year being a counter-revolutionary.
Legacy[edit | edit source]
Smelly Bison’s legacy is a mixed one. While the library has unprecedented space for expansion, with the lack of a new director or Germans, there have been no plans to make use of this new living space.