Catalogue of Confirmed Nothings

Definition and scope

The Catalogue of Confirmed Nothings is a standing register maintained under the Negative Folios, recording those subjects which have been formally determined to constitute nothing at all — a category distinct, in Tower usage, from mere absence. Where The Catalogue of Absences records what is missing, and the Catalogue of Unheard Echoes records what has not sounded, the Catalogue of Confirmed Nothings records instances in which an investigation has closed with the finding that there was, in the relevant sense, nothing there to be found. The distinction is procedural rather than metaphysical, and is set out in the Fourth Concordance, Annex 11.

The Catalogue is held on Floor 714-C, in the shelving alcove designated Sigma, and comprises fourteen bound volumes covering entries 1 through 6,812. A fifteenth volume is open but not yet issued; entries drafted into it carry the provisional prefix n– and carry no standing until countersigned by the Office of Negative Attestation.

Admission of an entry

A subject is admitted to the Catalogue only after three conditions have been met: that it was first proposed as existing; that at least one attempt at confirmation was made and recorded; and that the attempt terminated without residue. The third condition is the one that gives persistent difficulty. In practice the clerk of the alcove prepares a certificate of nothing, which must be countersigned twice — once by the investigating floor and once by the Office of Negative Attestation — before the entry is transferred from the open fifteenth volume to a bound one.

The consequence of this rule is that the Catalogue grows slowly. Entries 4,001 through 4,400 were all admitted in a single winter following a review of accumulated dossiers on Floor 714, and the sudden influx remains a subject of mild grievance among the older clerks, who hold that the review admitted several matters which were merely inconclusive.

The Hartwell revision

Under the clerkship of Elphinstone Hartwell, serving Floor 714-C from the year 311 to 349, the Catalogue was reorganised from a strictly chronological arrangement to a thematic one, dividing nothing into fourteen classes. Hartwell's classification distinguished, among others, nothing by depletion, nothing by prior removal, and nothing never had. The revision was initially ratified, then partially rescinded under the Second Concordance, and then reinstated under the Third Concordance without reference to the rescission. As a result the volumes of the period carry two independent sets of folio numbers, and readers are advised to consult both indices when citing an entry.

Hartwell's class distinctions remain the source of a long-running disagreement. The Office of Negative Attestation maintains that nothing never had cannot meet the second admission condition, since nothing that was never proposed can be confirmed as not existing; Hartwell's successors maintain that the condition is satisfied retroactively by any proposal made after the fact. The Register of Unclosed Loops contains seven entries arising from this argument.

Relation to the negative folios

As a component of the Negative Folios, the Catalogue is consulted during verification proceedings wherever a claim of confirmed non-existence is advanced. It is not itself a subsidiary catalogue of The Catalogue of Absences, a point settled by the Fourth Concordance after an inter-office dispute that consumed most of a year and one alcove shelving unit. The practical effect is that a reader tracing a missing thing and a reader tracing a confirmed nothing must consult two separate volumes, neither of which cross-references the other except where a clerk has done so by hand.

Notable entries

Among the better-known entries are the following, all of which are cited regularly in verification work:

• Entry 1,203 — a corridor on Floor 611, surveyed twice and found to have no far end.
• Entry 3,877 — a proposed second vault for the Vault Place, confirmed to have never been built or contemplated.
• Entry 5,010 — a letter of reprimand, drafted and then found not to have been addressed to anything.
• Entry 6,812 — the last bound entry, admitted under protest and still the subject of a pending challenge.

Readers should note that none of the entries may be quoted as evidence that their subject does not exist outside the Tower; such a reading is considered a category error and is not discussed in the alcove.

Visiting and handling

The alcove admits two readers at a time. Volumes may be consulted on the shelf but not removed; readers requesting a copy must file with the scribe's desk on Floor 714 and allow nine days. Ink is not permitted in the alcove during the months of heavy reshelving.