Template Inscription

Template Inscription is the practice of inscribing a subject onto a template before the subject itself is inscribed anywhere, and thereafter treating the template as the operative record until a copy is issued. It is distinguished from Primary Inscription in that the template, not the object, receives the first mark; it is distinguished from Provisional Inscription in that nothing about it is intended to be superseded. Template Inscription is governed by the Archive of Base Templates and is the only inscription practice for which the Sealing Registry keeps a standing count.

The practice arose, according to the marginalia of the Third Concordance, from a clerical economy: a form inscribed once could stand for a thousand forms, and the thousand could be struck later from the one. What began as an abbreviation of labour hardened into doctrine. By the recension of 4,102 the Archive held that a subject not entered on a template had not, in the operative sense, been entered at all — a position restated without amendment in every subsequent recension and quietly ignored on at least three floors.

Procedure and the question of the first mark

Template Inscription proceeds on Standard Template E-7, on which the inscriber enters the subject's designation, its floor of record, and a statement of what the template is to stand for. The template is then sealed under the Proposed Containment Protocol Template if the subject is containment-related, and shelved in the Archive of Base Templates if it is not. Only after sealing may copies be struck. A copy struck before sealing is void and, in the phrase of Registrar Alaric, Third of his Designation, "not a copy but a rumour" (Alaric, On the Striking of Copies, §12).

Where the subject is an absence, the template is inscribed within a designated Inscription Atrium and validated by the Ceremony of Inscription, which measures the Corroborative Resonance between template and absence. Where the subject is architectural, the Ceremony of Spatial Binding is substituted and the template is inscribed on the lintel rather than the leaf. Templates for floors are additionally governed by the Seventh Concordance, whose Standard Attenuated Template permits a template to be shortened to a single aperture-mark where the floor's name is longer than its number. This provision has been invoked 214 times, mostly on the upper spirals.

Lists and the celebrated case of Floor 1,882

Template Inscription does not permit a template to stand for two subjects. Since the ruling in Archive v. Inscriber Halloway (Floor 1,882, winter of the year recorded as 6,044), a template covering a pair has been read as covering neither. Inscriber Halloway had entered a single template for the twin lamp-niches of the eastern stair, arguing that they were indistinguishable and that separate templates would produce a distinction the niches did not possess. The Archive conceded the indistinguishability and voided the template regardless. Both niches were struck from the register for eleven years; the eastern niche was re-entered in 6,055 and the western is still unlisted. Visitors to Floor 1,882 are asked not to count the niches aloud.

Where a subject genuinely comprises several parts, the parts are listed on a single template in the order they were first observed, and the list is sealed as part of the template rather than appended to it. The order is not permitted to be revised, which is why the inventory of the Chained Reading Room appears on its template with the fourth item — a stool — preceding the second, the second having been added later by marginal correction.

Dispute between the Archive and the Sealing Registry

The Archive of Base Templates and the Sealing Registry dispute whether a template is a record or an instrument. The Archive holds that a sealed template is a record and cannot be altered; the Registry holds that it is an instrument and must be reissued whenever the subject changes. Concordance 33 supports the Archive, providing at Annex 6 that "a sealed template is closed to the inscriber and open only to the reader." The Third Concordance supports the Registry, providing at Annex 4 that "the template follows the subject as the shadow follows the pillar." That the two annexes are numbered alike and were drafted in the same hand has been noted in the literature and never resolved.

"Where two Concordances speak to one template, the inscriber shall inscribe the template twice: once as record, once as instrument, and shall not compare the two."

— Concordance 33, Annex 6, second recension

The practical effect is the double-template, a form in which the record copy and the instrument copy are shelved apart and may not be consulted in the same sitting. Inscribers on sub-level 6 have petitioned for relief from this requirement in each of the last thirty-one years. The petitions conform to Standard Template E-7 and are therefore accepted, filed, and inscribed on a template of their own, which has not been read since its sealing.

Relationship to other inscription practices

Template Inscription is procedurally entangled with Marginal Inscription, since the margins of a template are the only part of it an inscriber may still touch after sealing, and with Temporary Inscription, which is defined by the absence of a template altogether. The relation to Final Inscription is contested: the Archive maintains that every Final Inscription is a Template Inscription whose subject has since arrived, while the Registry maintains the reverse. Until the question is settled, inscribers are directed to complete both forms and to strike the copies on separate days. Template Inscription is not to be confused with Ceremonial Inscription Amp Integration, which concerns the amplification of the ceremony and not the template.

Corrections to a sealed template are made by Marginal Inscription only, in ink of a contrasting colour, and may not exceed the width of the aperture-mark. A correction exceeding that width is copied onto a fresh template and the original is retained unaltered, a rule whose cost to the Archive is recorded annually and has never been queried.