What's About to Happen at the State Library of Victoria?

GH on the last days of a beloved cafe

The incoming CEO of the State Library of Victoria - the shortlist is complete, an appointment may not be far away - will have a full in-tray. The institution has dragged its reputation through the mud. Relations between staff and management are poisonous, between the library and donors strained. Morale is delicate despite the (probably temporary) rolling back of last year’s bone-headed Strategic Reorganisation Change Proposal.

Though a promising new president has taken office, another board member is attracting some unwanted publicity. Questions have been raised about the appointment of the chief librarian. The ‘Director, Experience’ lasted barely two years during which service standards continue to decline. Opening hours cut back during COVID, for example, were never restored, and book retrieval times allowed to blow out. You used to be able to obtain a book from the stacks within half an hour; now if you order at 4.02pm, as I did recently, you’ll have to wait til 11am next day. Despite this, there’s always money for a talking boot. And how’s that dome revamp appeal working out for them?

One of the biggest problems, however, looks irretrievable. This is the imminent closure of the beloved Mr Tulk, the popular cafe that has served the community and enriched the library nearly a decade. It has been booted for the benefit of The Big Group, the corporate catering behemoth who currently service the cocktail party set in Queen’s Hall, which thereby becomes unavailable for a large portion of every day to the public whose taxpayer dollars helped fund its refurbishment.

Disclaimer alert: Et Al is friendly with Tulk’s owners, Michael and Maria Togias. But this simply means that a/ I visit regularly; and b/ as a result am lost in admiration for the couple’s work ethic and sense of mission. But don’t just take my word for it: note the 6235 people who signed a petition protesting its closure. The food is fresh and tasty, the ambience warm and welcoming, the staff of 30 efficient and friendly. There is, quite simply, no better cafe in the CBD, nothing has done more to build goodwill for the library over the last ten years, and everyone knows it - everyone, that is, except library management. They weren’t even aware that Michael had named the cafe for the inaugural state librarian - the previous CEO thought that ‘Mr Tulk’ was Michael.

Your man

Et Al has previously described the circumstances of the tendering process, on which Michael and Maria spent $50,000, even to the point of having to prepare a tasting treating library officialdom as though they were the judges on Masterchef. Michael was advised he was the favoured tenderer until….amazing to say….he wasn’t.

I half wish I’d been there for Michael’s meeting with Richard Morrison, the library’s new commercial operations manager, whose previous employer also has its share of problems right now - for anything cultural right now, Jacinta Allan’s Victoria is a fucking hellscape. Morrison, I have on the authority of LinkedIn, is a ‘dynamic and commercially astute professional with significant experience driving strategic growth and revenue generation in the arts and culture sector…with a proven track record of leading high-impact initiatives balancing mission-driven, customer experience, and financial priorities’ and ‘adept at identifying new opportunities, negotiating complex deals and partnerships, and delivering on ambitious revenue targets’, not to mention possessed of ‘exceptional interpersonal and highly developed leadership skills with proven success managing diverse cross-functional teams and collaboratively engaging both internal and external stakeholders.’ But Morrison didn’t collaboratively engage with Michael; he tersely advised that Mr Tulk’s tender had been narrowly pipped; Michael tersely replied: ‘This means fucking war.’

It was a war that Michael, for all his success gaining publicity, was never likely to win, entering a tender being tantamount to accepting its outcome. But what’s worsened the process infinitely has been the degrading and punitive way the library has treated Michael and Maria since the decision. A couple of testy exchanges with management were escalated into a pretext for prohibiting Michael’s presence from the library, as though he was some intractable hooligan rather than a hardworking small businessman nursing a completely understandable sense of disappointment. The forces of lawfare were unleashed, interminable letters sent by the State Government Solicitor clogged with HR jargon (‘Intimidatory Conduct’, ‘pernicious behaviour’ with ‘ancillary staff safety and Library premises amenity considerations’), meetings about said ban agreed to then mysteriously cancelled.

This last followed the publication of excellent articles in last week’s Herald Sun, Greek City Times, and Greek Herald - not a coincidence, one fancies.

But exactly what was this ‘previous behaviour’? Et Al has some insight here, involving one of the ‘incidents’ that started all this pearl clutching. It occurred on 27 February in the little Guild Cafe on Russell Street, which Michael took over when the previous owners could not make a go of it, and which TBG has recently assumed responsibility for the running of. The solicitor’s version of events is that ‘Michael proceeded to the Guild Cafe, loitering in the company of another person who was taking photographs of the cafe and TBG’s staff members’. Then….

Of particular concern in this instance was the way that Michael and his companion moved towards a female TBG staff member in the Guild Cafe area, causing her to feel threatened and quickly move away.

Oh, the humanity! But as you may have guessed, I was this ‘companion’. I asked Michael if he’d join me on a quick look at The Guild under its new management. Here are the two photographs I took during our one-minute ‘loitering’ which bothered no customer, and where no staff casualties were sustained.

Nothing to see and nobody identifiable, with the most offensive aspect being that TBG charges nearly $15 for a pre-made chicken toastie - I mean, I’m not surprised they want to keep that quiet, but it’s hardly confidential information. Who knows what followed? Maybe TBG complained. If so, a wise management might have made enquiries, noted the visit’s innocence, de-escalated with a quiet word, moved on. But State Library management is not wise. It is mean, petty and obtuse. Because what did they think would happen when they shuttered a place so beloved by its patrons and inseparable from its premises? That a couple deprived of their livelihood after a decade of backbreaking labour and protective of their blameless staff would just say: ‘Oh well, easy come, easy go’? That a loyal clientele would shrug their shoulders and respond: ‘We can’t wait to fork out $15 for some sad, mass-produced corporate finger food’? Anyway, because people evidently have nothing better to do with their time, me idling a minute in The Guild was escalated into a six-page letter to Michael and Maria from the State Government Solicitor. The latest letter, I note, is seven pages. They’re actually getting longer…..

Now, you might think I’m sweating some small stuff here, and, of course, I am. Just a library. Just a cafe. Sure. But it just irks me when good people are badly treated by unfeeling institutions, and when beautiful things carefully nurtured and widely loved are trashed for no good reason - as Tulk will be on 13 May. It’s also my opinion that the policy of pinpricks pursued towards a couple to whom the library actually owes a colossal debt of gratitude testifies to the urgent need for change, in culture and personnel, at this jewel of Victoria. A new CEO should be just the start.