Alaric of the Interim

Alaric of the Interim is the common designation for Keeper Alaric (Years 1001–1133), a Librarian whose tenure was characterized by its repeated association with provisional, contested, or otherwise impermanent administrative roles. His career is most famously marked by the Re-categorization Scandal of 892, though his influence extends across several key institutional developments, including the formalization of the Interim Stacks and the codification of protocols for handling materials of indeterminate ontology.

Early Tenure and Provisional Appointments

Records from the Interim Stacks indicate Alaric first entered Librarian service in Year 1001, assigned to the then-embryonic Department of Provisional Cataloguing. His early work involved the classification of objects recovered from expeditions that had lost their original context tags, a task that required frequent recourse to the Interim Committee for Resonance Management. Alaric’s propensity for making definitive judgments on ambiguous materials was noted in his first decadal review (Year 1011), with the reviewer remarking on his "unsettling comfort with the interim state." This led to a series of short-term appointments, including a seven-hour term as interim Keeper of the Threshold, which concluded with the permanent, spontaneous sealing of Aperture 9-Gamma.

The Re-categorization Scandal of 892

Alaric’s most consequential act occurred in Year 892, while he held a provisional curatorship over a collection of auditory flora from Floor 306. Without consulting the Registry of Minor Impressions, he controversially re-categorized the seventeen specimens from 'Living' to 'Echoic,' arguing their sounds were not vocalizations but "residual impressions of silence." The action violated Protocol XI regarding ontological shifts and triggered a formal dispute. The Twelfth Interim Mandate later partially validated his action, though it was subsequently overturned by the Formalist School of Spiral 309. The specimens remain in suspended animation within the Hall of Interim Objects, catalogued under the disputed 'Echoic' designation, a direct outcome of Alaric’s intervention.

Contributions to Interim Doctrine

Following the scandal, Alaric was reassigned to theoretical work, producing a series of treatises collectively known as the Disceptationes. These writings, later published under the name Provost Alaric, argue for a "doctrine of productive instability," positing that the interim state is not a failure of classification but a distinct ontological category worthy of its own archive. His advocacy was instrumental in the expansion and formal structuring of the Interim Stacks, leading to the creation of dedicated halls for objects under review, contested artifacts, and materials exhibiting self-referential properties. He served as the first chair of the reconstituted Interim Committee for Resonance Management from Year 1050 to 1070.

Later Career and Disputes

In his later years, Alaric held the position of Director of the Directorate of Luminescence and Refraction, a role seemingly distant from his interim-focused work. However, archival notes suggest he used this position to mandate that all reports on refractive anomalies include a provisional classification appendix, a move criticized by the Purist School. His final recorded dispute, in Year 1122, concerned a recurring waterspout on Floor 5,712; he contested the Doctrine of Persistent Phenomena, arguing the phenomenon was not persistent but "a series of identical, discrete interim events." This instance is often cited as the last recorded case of Contextual Dissolution prior to his own passing in Year 1133.

Scholarly Assessment and Legacy

Assessment of Alaric of the Interim remains divided. Proponents, often from the Intermittent Auxiliary, credit him with creating the necessary bureaucratic and physical infrastructure to handle the Tower’s most ambiguous holdings, preventing catalogical gridlock. Detractors, notably the Formalist and Purist schools, argue his legacy is one of institutionalized doubt, unnecessarily complicating clear classifications and fostering a culture of perpetual review. His name is invoked in ongoing debates regarding the Recovery of objects from lower floors, with one faction insisting all such finds be automatically routed to the Interim Stacks in accordance with "Alaric’s Principle," while others cite Concordance 18 to argue for immediate, definitive placement. His precise relationship to other notable Librarians bearing the name Alaric (e.g., Prefect Alaric, Alaric, Third of his Designation, Alaric of the Southern Stacks) is a matter of genealogical speculation rather than documented record.