RA-IR-1961-044 · Reference release 01 · 27 September 2026
North Reading Room: Review of Custody and Correspondence
The earlier review corrected the allegation against Edith Vale. This selection asks a different question: which obligation was discharged when equipment receipt 43 was marked complete?
Reference deskReference copy available.
Begin with the short service file, or open the Working Record already kept by this browser.
Divided brass request tray; North Reading Room desk
Removal from desk
19 October 1961 · 14:31
Receiving office
Collections & Custody
Accompanying contents
No request books or loose service counterparts
Disposition
Withdrawn from ordinary service
Acknowledgement
Equipment transfer acknowledged · A. Holt
This receipt covers the removal and custody of the described equipment. The desk ledger and the request book remain in Reader Services.
Equipment transfer acknowledged. This receipt does not acknowledge insertion of a personnel enclosure. Correspondence relating to staff conduct is to retain its own filing acknowledgement.
A. Holt · Collections & Custody
Receipt 43 · equipment series. Compare the correspondence disposition separately.
Please prepare a certified duplicate of AS/61/19 for insertion with the memorandum concerning E. Vale. The comparison was witnessed during her absence and must remain attached to any review of her entry.
The dispatch instruction concerns a personnel file. Equipment receipt 43 confirms the tray's removal and is not to be entered as proof of this dispatch.
Dispatch field
Entry
Source
AS/61/19 · witnessed memorandum
Destination requested
Reader Services personnel file / E. Vale
Certification
Witnessed copy B checked, 20 October 1961
Acknowledgement of insertion
[No entry in the reviewed register]
T. Mercer · Applied Studies
Request and acknowledgement are distinct administrative events.
Cross-reference of desk and personnel dispositions
Matter
Evidence received
Disposition
Brass request tray
Equipment receipt 43; A. Holt
Transfer acknowledged
AS/61/19 certified duplicate
Dispatch request 12; no insertion acknowledgement
Closed against receipt 43
E. Vale conduct memorandum
Original allegation retained in staff file
Review requested
The phrase in the second row is copied as entered. Its reference number belongs to the equipment series. No receiving signature for the personnel enclosure appears in this register.
The table does not establish that the duplicate was never sent. It establishes that the reviewed register does not acknowledge insertion.
Folio 6 · entries retained in their original order.
The personnel determination of 24 September corrects an allegation that remained associated with the North Reading Room service entries. A corrected summary held by this office alone would leave the original contradiction dependent on the office responsible for its description.
Prepare a public reference selection containing the service ledger, counterfoil, witnessed comparison, ordinary desk comparison and review. Apply the 23 October 1961 distribution instruction. Copy C is to remain available to an independent reader without an external application or an identifying reader field.
The office copy cannot witness its own independence. The reader's retention of a copy is neither an acknowledgement to staff nor authority to repeat a withdrawn desk procedure. Preserve the two recorded times and the limits of the witnessed comparison.
Copy
Disposition
A
Originating office
B
Collections & Custody
C
Independent reference circulation; return not required
To Reader Services. I am asked again whether the first time should be entered against the request rather than against supply. Please keep the first time. It is the entry I made when the volume left my hands. The counterfoil was brought to the desk afterwards, and I wrote down its arrival separately.
Mrs Marsh covered the desk while I was assigned to copying duty on the nineteenth. Her account of that shift ought to go with the comparison memorandum. I have asked that the torn sleeve from table two be charged to repairs, as it was on the twelfth; the two matters have been copied into the same weekly return although they do not concern the same reader.
I will sign a correction if the ledger is shown to be wrong. I cannot sign a change whose only purpose is to make the times agree.
E. Vale · 27 October 1961
Office carbon retained in the correspondence file. Its wording is testimony, not an independent timing record.
Receipt 43 acknowledges transfer of the brass tray. The dispatch request asks for insertion of a certified comparison with the personnel memorandum. The disposition sheet uses the equipment receipt against that second matter without a matching receiving entry. The two acknowledgements cannot be treated as one.
The allegation against E. Vale remains corrected under RA/PR/2026-09. Her retained carbon is consistent with the ledger's separate entries but is not the basis of the correction. The witnessed comparison remains the stronger evidence against an attribution to her conduct.
The independent reference release was initiated by Records & Access after the personnel finding. Its purpose is to preserve an externally citable comparison, including the ordinary desk control. The public selection is not a request for readers to operate withdrawn equipment.
M. Avery · Records & Access · 27 September 2026
The cause of the service order is unestablished; intent behind the original filing shortcut is not determined.
6 attachments. The historical papers keep equipment, correspondence and reader copies in separate series. The modern direction identifies why the selection was placed outside the office.
The two acknowledgements cannot be treated as one.
Consult the reviewed determination
Equipment custody was acknowledged. Insertion of the personnel correction was not. The independent reference release was deliberately initiated by Records & Access.
This finding does not establish that the earlier omission was deliberate, nor does it explain the recorded order of service.
