Master Index for Provisional Holdings

The Master Index for Provisional Holdings is the administrative instrument by which the Master Index divides its unconfirmed contents into seven Classes. It is not itself an index of subjects but an index of kinds of uncertainty: a holding is entered under the Class that best describes why it cannot yet be permanently shelved. The Master Index for Provisional Holdings has been recensed eleven times since its first redaction under Fourth Concordance, Annex 2, and its current form is held in a locked cabinet on the fourteenth floor of Spiral Theta, where it may be consulted by appointment. Appointments are not presently being taken.

The Seven Classes

The Classes are designated by Roman numeral and are not ranked. Librarians are repeatedly reminded of this by the Provisional Index to Spiral Theta, which prints the reminder in its front matter and again on its last folio.

Class VII is the largest and the least discussed. The Master Index has direct custodianship of the classes and is under no obligation to state a reason for declining a holding, and has not stated one since 3 Byre, 1142.

The Recensions and the Third-Class Dispute

The fourth recension introduced the requirement that a Class III holding be described by both witnesses in the same room, on the same day. This was intended to resolve discordance by proximity. It did not. The Master Index of Contradictory Holdings is cross-referenced during the Vestibulation Sequence precisely because the proximity rule generated a second, nested discordance: whether two Librarians in the same room but separated by a screen count as proximate. The sixth recension says they do. The ninth, in an annex widely held to supersede it, says they do not and never did. Both are printed in the current edition, on facing pages, with a note in the margin reading "see also."

"Where two accounts of one holding cannot be reconciled in the same room, the room shall be considered to have contained one holding or two, as the senior witness prefers."

— Sixth Concordance, Annex 9, clause 4

The seniority rule has never been tested, because the Tower has never established a consistent order of seniority among Librarians of the same grade. The Roll of Precedence, Provisional Grades has been in draft since 1187.

Procedure on Entry

A holding is proposed by a sponsoring Librarian, cross-referenced against the Master Index of Resolved Contradictions, and checked for demonstrable conflict with any permanent holding before inscription in the Ledger of Temporary Holdings. If no conflict is found, the holding passes to the Sub-Index of Unfulfilled Prophecies for a period of quiet, during which it may be withdrawn by its sponsor without explanation. The quiet period is nominally forty days. In practice it ends when the sponsor next visits the floor.

Matters go wrong chiefly at the boundary between Class V and Class VI. Byre, a clerk of the eleventh floor, spent the winter of 1203 attempting to inscribe a holding that both fell on a date not yet reached and belonged to a floor whose number had been reassigned. The holding was entered under Class V, struck, entered under Class VI, struck, and finally entered under both with a note directing the reader to consult whichever classification proved correct. The note has since acquired its own Class VII entry. Byre's subsequent memorandum on the subject, filed with the Satellite Index, is thirty-one pages long and ends: "I no longer recommend that holdings be classified. I recommend instead that they be left where they are found. The Tower has been no worse for it." The memorandum was not answered. Byre was reassigned to the Material Master Index in the following spring and did not appeal.

Relationship to the Other Master Indices

The Master Index for Provisional Holdings is frequently confused with the four indices it serves. It is distinguished from the Master Floor Index in that it takes no account of where a holding is; from the Provenance Master Index in that it takes no account of where a holding came from; and from the Conceptual Master Index in that it takes no account of what a holding is about. It records only the warrant for provisionality, which is to say the shape of the doubt.

The distinction is restated for the benefit of new Librarians in Eighth Concordance, Annex 1, and again — with some irritation — in the same Concordance's second recension, which inserts the sentence "the Master Index for Provisional Holdings is not the Master Index, and the two shall not be shelved together." The prohibition is a shelving prohibition and is enforced by the Master Index Object, which has been recorded to shift on its shelf when the two documents are brought within a yard of each other. This has been observed twice, both times by the same Librarian, who is now of Class II.

Consultation

The current recension may be consulted on the fourteenth floor of Spiral Theta during the hours the cabinet is unlocked, which are not posted. Readers are asked not to annotate the margins; the marginal notes already present are part of the record and have been cited in three disputes. Wren of the provisional folios holds the working copy and can be petitioned in writing. Petitions are answered in order of receipt, and the order of receipt is not disclosed.

No holding has ever been promoted out of Class VII. The Master Index has not commented.