diff --git a/ceo/library.py b/ceo/library.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5905826
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ceo/library.py
@@ -0,0 +1,99 @@
+""" The backend for the library-tracking system
+
+This uses shelve which is pretty simplistic, but which should be sufficient for our (extremely minimal) use of the library.
+
+There is a booklist (book=(Author, Title, Year, Signout)) where signout is None for "Checked In" or a (userid, date) to give who and when that book was signed out.
+"""
+
+import shelve
+import time
+import re
+
+LIBRARY_DB = "./csc_library.db"
+
+class Book:
+    def __init__(self, author, title, year):
+        """Any of these may be None to indicate 'unknown'."""
+        self.author =author
+        self.title = title
+        self.year = year
+        self.signout = None
+    def sign_out(self, username):
+        if self.signout is None:
+            self.signout = Signout(username)
+        else:
+            raise Exception("Book already signed out to %s" % self.signout.name, b)
+    def sign_in(self): 
+        if self.signout is not None:
+            self.signout = None
+        else:
+            raise Exception("Book was not signed out, no need to sign it in")
+    
+    def __str__(self):
+        return "Book(author=%r, title=%r, year=%r, signout=%r)" % (self.author, self.title, self.year, self.signout)
+
+class Signout:
+    """Represents a sign-out of a book to someone. Automatically records when the signout occured"""
+    def __init__(self, name):
+        #in theory we could check that the name given to us is in LDAP
+        self.name = str(name)
+        self.date = time.time()
+    def __repr__(self):
+        return "Signout(%r, %s)" % (self.name, time.ctime(self.date))
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+def reset():
+    """make a fresh database"""
+    shelve.open(LIBRARY_DB,'n').close()
+
+
+def add(author, title, year):
+    db = shelve.open(LIBRARY_DB,'w') #use w here (not c) to ensure a crash if the DB file got erased (is this a good idea?)
+    i = len(db)
+    db[str(i)] = Book(author, title, year)
+    db.close()
+
+def search(author=None, title=None, year=None):
+    """search for a title
+    author and title are regular expressions
+    year is a single number or a list of numbers (so use range() to search the DB)
+    whichever ones passed in that aren't None are the restrictions used in the search
+    possibly-useful side effect of this design is that search() just gets the list of everything
+    this is extraordinarily inefficient, but whatever (I don't think that without having an indexer run inthe background we can improve this any?)
+    returns: a list of Book objects
+    """
+    db = shelve.open(LIBRARY_DB, 'w', writeback=True) #open it for writing so that changes to books get saved
+    all = db.values() #this should pull out the ID numbers somehow too.. bah
+    if author is not None:
+       all = [book for book in all if book.author and re.match(author, book.author)] #should factor this out 
+    if title is not None:
+       all = [book for book in all if book.title and re.match(title, book.title)] #should factor this out 
+    if year is not None:
+        if type(year) == int:
+            year = [year]
+        #now assume year is a list
+        all = [book for book in all if book.year and book.year in year]
+    db.close()
+    return all
+
+
+#def delete(....):
+#    """must think about how to do this one; it'll have to be tied to the DB ID somehow"""
+#    pass
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    #print "Making database"
+    #reset()
+    #print
+    #print "Filling database"
+    #add("Bob McBob", "My Life Of Crime", None)
+    print
+    print "Listing database"
+    for b in search():
+        #b.sign_out("nguenthe")
+        print b