Silence please, or else

Are you creative, adaptable, ambitious and resourceful? Do you have an iron grip on the Dewey Decimal System? Are you eligible for US government secret clearance?

Then we might have found the job for you: running the "Detainee Library" at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Courtesy of FP Passport, the weblog of the magazine, Foreign Policy, we stumbled across this advert (only available cached) placed by Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions, a US civilian contractor based in Arlington, Virginia.

As the description runs: "In managing the Detainee Library, the Chief Librarian is responsible for providing, maintaining and developing library services and operations using reading, recreational games and puzzles, music, or electronic media. The Chief Librarian is responsible for selecting and maintaining a range of reading and recreational materials to reflect the needs of the patrons in terms of languages and appropriate / approved topics."

Patrons. Approved topics. This was the first we had heard of the Gitmo Library, where library fines are, presumably, the least of your problems.

But we found a couple of articles about the place, including this article in The World, a joint effort of the BBC and public broadcasters in the US.

Detainees can't come to the library but have books delivered to their cells. They can take books out for a week and Harry Potter, no surprise there, is a big favourite among the 400 prisoners. JK Rowling's series is available in seven languages.

We enjoyed this moment when The World journalist asked about legal text books or political texts:

"Aaahh law books," replies Lori, the librarian. "Well first of all, there's really no need for a law book here. I mean these guys are detained enemy combatants. We have an international right to detain people who were fighting against our coalition forces."

This AP story contained an interesting nugget that suggested that the Guantanamo Bay library has plans to grow, even if the rest of the world wants the place shut down. The facility tripled in size in May after a bulk purchase of Arabic, Urdu and Pashtun books, bringing the total to 4,200.

"We want to have 20,000 books within the next five years," said Army Lt. John Brown, a librarian. Five more years eh?

UPDATE: Put your CVs away. Just got a call back from Wala Ali, at Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions. The post is filled. Ms Ali said that Torres had between 8 to 10 applicants for the job and they ended up sending two librarians to Guantanamo, along with two teachers.