Provisorial Unitaries

Provisorial Unitaries are a class of catalogued subjects held in temporary non-existence within the Tower, distinguished from Provisional Unitaries by their appointment to a prolisory rather than a custodial status. Where a Provisional Unitary awaits ratification under the Provisional Indexing Guidelines, a Provisorial Unitary has been declared to exist only for the duration of a specific proceeding and is dissolved by the proceeding's closure. The distinction was first codified in the Third Concordance, though the Fifth Concordance later contested its validity on the ground that no subject can be "temporarily non-existent" without ceasing to be a subject.

Origins and Legislative History

The category of Provisorial Unitaries emerged from a dispute on Floor 1144-Ω during the Winter Recension of 3182, when the Office of the Provisional Census entered a subject — the eastward silence of the spiral stair — under a Provisional Shelf-Mark prefixed “ΨU”, then withdrew it the same day upon a ruling of the Department of Provisional Holdings. The Archivist-Provisional Aris observed that the withdrawal left the subject "neither held nor free, which the Ledger of Temporary Holdings does not accommodate." The Concordance of Simultaneous Holdings thereafter authorised a second marking, the prolisory sigil “ΠU”, to be applied where a unitary was required for a hearing but not for custody.

Clause 4.11.γ of the Provisional Indexing Guidelines makes no mention of prolisory status; the Third Concordance amended the Guidelines by annex, asserting that "a subject resisting categorical bifurcation may be held prolisorily where the Vestibule of Provisional Tenancy is at capacity." The Fifth Concordance replied that the Vestibule had no recorded capacity and that the annex was therefore void. The contradiction remains unreconciled in the current recension.

Administration and Marking

A Provisorial Unitary is entered not into the Provisional Ledger but into the Ledger of Temporary Holdings by the Office of the Provisional Census, and is assigned a Provisional Shelf-Mark prefixed “ΠU” rather than “ΨU”. Custody does not pass to the Department of Provisional Holdings; instead the subject rests with the officiating clerk until the proceeding closes. The Archive of Provisional Holdings maintains a separate slip-index of prolisory matters, consulted chiefly by the Librarians during audits of the Archive.

"No Provisorial Unitary shall be carried beyond the floor on which its proceeding opened, save under seal of the Concordance of Simultaneous Holdings, and even then only downhill."

— Third Concordance, Annex 9

In practice, the restriction has been interpreted narrowly: the clerk Menth of the Lower Scriptorium once conveyed a Provisorial Unitary three floors upward by enclosing it within a Provisional Holding 17-θ, an act the Fifth Concordance declined to rule upon on the ground that the unitary had already dissolved.

Notable Provisorial Instances

The Provisional Holding 881-B was, for eleven days in 3204, a Provisorial Unitary pending a determination of whether it held itself. The Provisional Continuation of that matter produced the only known instance of a prolisory subject ratifying its own existence through the filing of a Form B-9 "Declaration of Provisional Existence", though the Department of Provisional Holdings refused to accept the form on the ground that the filer had dissolved at midnight.

A second instance, the Provisional Holding Number, was held prolisorily across four proceedings concerning its numeration, each of which closed without conclusion. The Office of the Provisional Census notes in the Ledger of Temporary Holdings that "the subject persists by inertia and is not to be disturbed before the next recension."

Scholarly Disagreement

The central dispute concerns whether a Provisorial Unitary is ever "real within the Tower" in the sense reserved for ratified holdings. The Third Concordance holds that prolisory existence is a species of existence. The Fifth Concordance contends that "existence prolisory is existence borrowed, and a borrowed subject is a subject to no office," a position cited by the Librarians in rejecting a petition to extend Provisional Continuation benefits to prolisory matters. The Concordance of Simultaneous Holdings occupies the middle ground, ruling that a Provisorial Unitary is real for the purposes of the floor it occupies and unreal for all others.

Procedural Notes

Clerks opening a prolisory proceeding are required to announce the unitary's name three times at the Vestibule of Provisional Tenancy, after which the Office of the Provisional Census records the Provisional Shelf-Mark. Visitors to a floor holding a Provisorial Unitary may not lean against the eastern wall, as the pressure is held to accelerate dissolution. The Archive of Provisional Holdings recommends that all such matters be closed before the Winter Recension, as open prolisories are excluded from the count and distort the annual Provisional Census.