The Dark Directory · Request 08
Described At Item Level
1,967 words · about 9 min
Back to The Morkinstar Journals
Request 11-0517 · class II · returned complete
REQUEST SLIP
Reading Room. Form R-1, revision 8.
Describe the item you require. This office cannot search on subject alone. If the item you require is not described in the catalogue, describe it here in your own words, at whatever length you need.
Name: Torgir
Date: tick 39, click 22, galaxal 884
Class requested: I ☐ · II ☒ · III ☐ · IV ☐
I came in this morning to file the search and I have not filed it, because I read the board on the way past and the search is charged by the hour with an hour minimum and I would like to know what an hour buys before I buy two of them.
Here is the job. There is a culvert line under the west approach and I am cutting a trench across it in the spring. Nobody has the run of it. The parish had it copied once and the copy is no good, it stops at the third bend and picks up again as somebody else's hand. I have been told the works orders for that road were kept and that you hold them. That is the search I want to file, and I will describe the series properly when I file it, I have the reference off the parish copy.
What I want today is different and it is one sheet if it exists. I have been told you describe yourselves the same as you describe everything else, that there is an entry for the book the entries are in, and that it has an extent on it like a bundle of paper has an extent on it. If that is a real document I will take a copy of it and pay for the sheets.
My reason is only that I have been quoted three hundred and forty for a trial trench, and I can pay two hours here instead, and before I pay two hours here I would like some idea whether this place is a hundred shelves or the size of a town. I am not asking anybody to guess. I am asking for the sheet with the number on it.
I will say plainly that I do not much mind which way it goes. The trench is money and a week and a hole in a road that has to be made good after, and the search is money and an afternoon, and if the search comes out the more expensive of the two then I dig. I have costed worse things than this on less. The one thing I cannot cost is a place I have not been told the size of, and that is why this slip is the shape it is.
RESPONSE TO REQUEST
Reading Room, Retrievals. Form R-3, revision 21.
Reference: 11-0517
Issued: tick 41, click 22, galaxal 884
The request describes the repository's own description of itself, at item level, and asks for a copy of it. The repository holds such a description. It is item 1 of series 1. It is described at item level, as every holding in the repository is described at item level.
A copy is enclosed at enclosure A, three sheets. The description cites the notice of the last inventory, and a copy of that notice is enclosed at enclosure B, one sheet, because a figure that is stated as at a date is not complete without the document that fixes the date.
Charges, per the schedule of fees and charges, revision 12. Copying, four sheets at 2 the sheet: 8. No other charge arises. Class II service standard is one momenta. This request is returned in two ticks and is within standard.
The slip carries a class III box, struck through. No class III request is entered and no search has been undertaken. The rate for a class III search is published on the schedule of fees and charges at 11 the hour, minimum one hour, and the schedule is on the board at the counter and may be copied at the sheet rate.
This office does not estimate the hours a search will take. The extent of a series is stated in the description of that series. The rate is published. The multiplication is not a function of a description.
Signed for the repository: Reading Room, Retrievals.
ENCLOSURE A
Copy of catalogue entry. Certified as a true copy of the item held. No certification is offered as to anything the item states.
GENERAL INDEX TO THE HOLDINGS OF THE REPOSITORY
Reference: 1/1
Level of description: item
Dates of creation: from the first inventory. Continuing.
Extent and physical description. 4.1 linear. Sheets in fastened volumes, 58 volumes, in a run, on the counter side of the reading room. Volumes 1 to 3 are a fair copy. The volumes they were copied from are described at 1/2 and are retained. The repository does not discard a description on the grounds that it is duplicated. The hand changes at volume 40 and continues.
Condition. Sound. Volumes 4 and 5 are rebacked. Volume 40 is worn at the fore edge for the first eleven leaves and the text is not affected.
Arrangement. By fonds, thereunder by series, thereunder by item.
Provenance. Created by the repository in the course of its function of describing its holdings.
Scope and content. The item describes the holdings of the repository. Each holding is described at item level and each description states extent, physical form, condition, arrangement, provenance and access, in that order. Aggregate extent described: 1,206,411.4 linear at the last inventory.
Note on extent. The extent stated above is as at the last inventory and is stated as at that date every time it is stated. The extent stated is not the extent at time of reading, and no procedure exists that would make it so. The figure was taken at the last inventory and does not include the record of the inventory.
Access. No restriction. The item is in continuous use at the counter and is not produced to the reading room. A copy of any entry in it is produced on production of a description, at the sheet rate.
Custodial history. The item has not left the custody of the repository. Volumes 1 to 3 were copied at the counter and the counter is in the repository.
Appraisal. No appraisal is applied to this item and none is applied to any holding. No procedure exists for the destruction of a holding, and no procedure exists for the destruction of a description of a holding.
Accruals. Expected. Accruals are described at the inventory following.
Language and script. The language of the descriptions is the language of the office that made them. Where a holding is in another language the description states the language and does not translate the holding.
Rules and conventions. Descriptions are made to the standing description rule, revision 6, which requires extent and physical form before subject in every entry.
Dates of description. Each entry carries the date it was made. Entries amended at an inventory carry the date of the amendment and the date of the entry before amendment, and both entries are retained.
Related material. Notice of the last inventory, at 2/14. The schedule of fees and charges, revision 12, at 2/9. The standing description rule, revision 6, at 2/1.
ENCLOSURE B
Copy of notice. Certified as a true copy of the item held.
NOTICE OF INVENTORY
Inventory Office. Form S-9, revision 40.
Reference: 2/14
Closed: tick 288, click 21, galaxal 884
The inventory of the holdings of the repository, opened tick 44 of this click, is closed and certified complete as at the date above.
Every holding was produced, described, and returned to its place. Extent figures are republished for every fonds, every series and every item, and for the aggregate. Extent figures are not restated between inventories. A figure taken at this inventory is correct as at the closing date above and carries that date wherever it is stated.
The descriptions made in the course of this inventory are records of the repository and are filed as such at series 14.
Where a Standard value is rebased under Standing Order Six and the derived values keyed to it are restated, retention scope restates in the same proportion on the same date, that scope being a derived value. Holdings falling within a restated scope are described at the next inventory following. No notice is served on a holding. A record is not a party to a restatement and no procedure exists for serving one.
A holding described at inventory for which the repository does not hold a deposit record is described with its provenance stated as found in collection, that being the value the form carries for a holding on the shelf with no deposit record. Provenance may be established afterwards on production of a deposit record, and the description is amended, and the description before amendment is retained.
Distribution: Reading Room, counter copy, no removal. Standing Regulations Office, file copy. Repository archive, one copy, retained.
REQUEST SLIP
Reading Room. Form R-1, revision 8.
Describe the item you require. This office cannot search on subject alone. If the item you require is not described in the catalogue, describe it here in your own words, at whatever length you need.
Name: Torgir
Date: tick 41, click 22, galaxal 884
Class requested: I ☐ · II ☐ · III ☒ · IV ☐
Series of works orders raised by the road authority for the west approach, the stretch between the toll house and the second milestone, covering the laying of the culvert and any relaying of it after. The parish copy gives the series reference as 118/4 and gives the first order in it as being for a cut and cover of six chains. I want the run of it, the whole series, and in particular any order raised after the first that moves the line, because the parish copy stops at the third bend and I do not think the bend is where the copy says it is. Two hours booked and paid.
On the sheet you gave me. Read and understood. The figure is as at the inventory and not as at today, and it says so, and I do not need it to the sheet. I needed to know the order of the thing and I have it.
What settled it was not the figure anyway, it was the line above it. Arranged by fonds, thereunder by series, thereunder by item. I have the series reference off the parish copy. So the size of the place is not the thing I am buying an hour of. I am buying whether the description is any good, and the description of your own book is better than the parish's description of a road, so I will take the risk.
Copies 8. Search 22. Thirty all in against three hundred and forty for the trench. I have put two hours down. If it comes in at one, do not credit me, take the difference in sheets, I would rather have the paper.
RETRIEVAL NOTE
Holding cited: fonds 1, series 1, item 1. General index to the holdings of the repository. Enclosure B: fonds 2, series 14, item 3.
Extent and condition: 4.1 linear, sheets in fastened volumes, 58 volumes, sound; volumes 4 and 5 rebacked.
Access: No restriction applies. The item is not produced.
Requests in class not assigned: 4,143
Found in collection at last inventory: 64
This description is of the holding. It is not a copy of the holding.
This finding aid describes the holdings of the repository. It does not describe the repository.