July 10. An enquiry came from outside. It asks whether the set can be put up as published material.
At ten past nine I opened the letter that came yesterday.
The holding library of the telegraph operator's volume. The place that sent the colophon page in April.
It says it will put the set into its interlending list.
It says that to go into the list a thing must be published material.
The set stands at present as unpublished internal material.
There is a letter number. The term for reply is the end of August.
How it came to know of the set is not entered.
There are three items it asks after. Whether it is published, the year of publication, and the compiler.
All three are items this room must answer.
At half past nine I looked for the procedure for an application to publish.
There is one.
I sat a long while, having seen that there is a procedure.
For six months I have looked only for procedures that do not exist.
At twenty to ten I printed the application form from the system.
There are nine fields.
Six come out blank.
Three come out filled.
I read the nine fields in order.
Title of material. Imprint. Compiler. Applicant. Class of publication. Number of copies. Intended date of publication. Consent. Remarks.
At ten I read the three that are filled.
The title of material. The set's title is in it.
The imprint. Six characters are in it. Pnakotic Press.
The compiler. The same six characters are in it.
The applicant field is blank.
At twenty past ten I looked for why they come out filled.
It says the form draws them from the corresponding entry in the list.
In that entry on the list, the imprint field was filled in August last year.
The side that filled it is this room.
At twenty to eleven I brought up the form and the list together.
On the paper there are six characters.
In the same field on the list there are eight letters.
The list does not show the content of the field. It shows the notation of the account that filled it.
I saw it standing that way in the twelfth month last year. Three of them became one row then.
At twenty past eleven I looked at the applicant field.
The applicant field is not a field entered by hand. It goes in by account.
If it goes in on my account, eight letters are stamped there.
What the imprint field shows on the list is eight letters too.
Whether the two eights are the same is not visible on the form.
At one I read the consent field.
It says to attach the consent of the imprint.
The place to obtain consent from is the imprint. Its whereabouts were reported in June as not confirmable.
I went down to the consent field.
It is already in.
At half past one I opened the record for the consent field.
The date of processing is August last year.
The same day the imprint field was filled.
It says that when the imprint field is filled the consent field goes in with it.
There is no field for the party that consented.
The same structure as the index. It confirms nothing and only enters.
I entered it in the margin. Eighty-seven.
At a quarter past two I opened the account record for who processed the consent field.
There is one processing account. Eight letters.
Who went in under that notation in August last year is not known from this room's records.
That the one before me was in service that month I know from the log. The register of serving staff has no entry for that person.
At twenty-five past two I read what changes once a thing is published.
Published material may go outside for consultation.
Unpublished internal material cannot leave this room.
The sixth sub-number is in the set. The log of the one before me.
My own log is in it too.
At half past two I read the requirements for published material.
It says published material carries a colophon page.
Four things go on the colophon page. Author, imprint, place of publication and date of publication.
The compiler field is not a requirement. It may be there and it may not.
The four in the box have no colophon page. The four colophons at the holding libraries have a compiler field and all four are blank.
If the set is published a colophon page comes into being. That compiler field can be left blank.
At ten to three I left the applicant field blank and closed the form.
If it is left blank it is not caught.
I know that the one before me stood in the same place in April last year. That person filled it.
At three I opened the box.
Seven articles. Seven marks. Day five hundred and two.
The sixth field is ten thousand seven hundred and three. The set's row was opened a hundred and forty-five times yesterday and the imprint route a hundred.
The right-hand material is seven hundred and seventy-four pages. The date of the added page is the eighth of the eighth month of ninety-nine. The third line of page five hundred and thirty-nine has been blank a hundred and ninety-four days. The original of the fifth bundle is a hundred and seventy-seven pages and has not grown for five hundred and seventy-two days.
At half past three I noted down what to reply to the enquiry.
I entered that whether it is published is settled after application.
I did not enter that no application has been made.
At four I opened the letter again.
I had not looked at the top line in the morning.
There is a field for the one receiving.
This room's name is not in it.
It reads: to the editorial department, Pnakotic Press.
At twenty past four I checked the register. It did come in on this room's number.
This room's name of office is the computer room. There is no editorial department in this room.
At twenty to five I read the letter again from the beginning.
The side asking has asked the imprint.
To ask the imprint, one must know where the imprint is.
The side directed to confirm its whereabouts is this room, and in June it replied that confirmation was not possible.
The side asking knew the number.
That letter came here.