Floor 7α

Floor 7α is a designation floor of the Seventh Ascending Range, situated between Floor 6 and the landing recorded as Floor 7β. It is the only floor in the Tower whose number contains a letter, a condition the Office of Numerical Registry has never resolved and has instead codified. Floor 7α is not a floor on which anything is kept. It is the floor on which floor designations are checked before they are permitted to descend.

Function

Every floor number issued below Floor 111 passes through Floor 7α on its way to the bindery. Registry clerks compare the designation against the Standing Ledger of Numbers In Use and against the Index of Numbers Held in Reserve, and where the two disagree — which is often, as the Ledger is amended quarterly and the Index annually — the designation is held at Floor 7α until the discrepancy is reconciled or until eleven years have passed, whichever comes first. Held designations are stored on the eastern shelving in tin cassettes, one cassette per number, sorted by the date of issue and not by the number, which has caused three separate disputes with the Office of Shelving Practice.

The floor is staffed by four clerks, a sealer, and a lamp that is nobody's responsibility. The lamp was installed under Concordance 2,208, which provided for illumination of designation floors, and was maintained under Concordance 2,341, which provided for its discontinuation. It was relit in 3,406 by Clerk Anselm Vey on the grounds that a room where numbers are checked should not be checked in the dark. Vey's reasoning is quoted in the Second Recension of the Registry Handbook and is still cited whenever the lamp is challenged, which it is roughly once a decade.

History of the alpha suffix

The suffix was introduced in 3,112 when the Registry found itself with two floors numbered 7, one of which was between Floor 6 and Floor 8 and one of which could not be located at all but continued to receive correspondence. Rather than renumber either, the Registry appended the first letter of the Greek sequence to the disputed floor and referred the matter to the Librarians. The Librarians' response, recorded as Announcement 404-N, runs to a single paragraph:

"The designation 7α is confirmed. The designation 7 is confirmed. The designation 7β is confirmed in principle and in advance of any need for it. Parties seeking clarification of the sequence are directed to the sequence."

— Announcement 404-N, clause 2

Clerk Vey objected in writing that this settled nothing, and was informed by the Office of Procedural Consistency that a matter may be settled and unresolved at the same time, as provided by Concordance 1,107, Annex 9. Vey's objection is preserved in the floor's own records and is the most-consulted document held there, chiefly by clerks wishing to see what a successful objection looks like. It was not successful.

The Vey Cassette

In the winter of 3,418 Vey held a designation for a proposed floor, Floor 7γ, for the full eleven-year term after the Ledger and the Index could not be made to agree on whether gamma had been reserved. The cassette containing the designation was sealed, labelled, and shelved in the ordinary way. When the term expired in 3,429 the seal was broken and the cassette was found to contain a single slip reading see Floor 7α, in Vey's hand, though Vey had died in 3,421 and had not been on the floor since 3,409. The slip has never been explained. The Office of Seals examined the wax, confirmed it genuine, and declined to comment on the contents. The cassette is kept under glass at the head of the eastern shelving and is the nearest thing Floor 7α has to a relic.

Disputed situation

There is scholarly disagreement as to where exactly Floor 7α lies. The Third Concordance, Annex 6, places it between Floor 6 and Floor 7β and notes that "the sequence is not required to ascend." The Ninth Concordance, Annex 2, places it instead between Floor 7β and Floor 6, taking the view that the alpha designation indicates precedence and therefore precedence in descent. Both annexes are in force. The Office of Numerical Registry has adopted the practical position that a clerk travelling between Floor 6 and Floor 7α will arrive, and that this is sufficient for registry purposes; the Office of Stairwell Survey has surveyed the landing twice, in 3,489 and 3,502, and returned both times with conflicting measurements and no complaint.

Visitors to Floor 7α are asked to leave the eastern shelving undisturbed and to return any cassette they have opened to its shelf by date of issue rather than by number. The floor has no window. Deliveries are accepted at the northern door between the second and third bells.