General Reconciliation: Proposal and Hold

Reading copy · extract-RA-IR-2026-002-R01 · page 1

Proposal for general reconciliation

The current record sequence contains contradictory office instructions and unassigned custodial consequences. The Working Group proposes a controlled register that would reduce duplicate descriptions to one current account, while preserving a citation to the retired version.

The proposed authority is administrative: where an account has no acknowledgement or recognized independent retention, the controlling register may mark it superseded. The draft treats absence of an entered return as absence of a continuing outside account.

Proposal only. The clause concerning an outside account is repeated precisely in the later review.

Reading copy · extract-RA-IR-2026-002-R02 · page 1

Before and after · North Reading Room sample

Records rehearsal; no operative apparatus used. The Working Group transcribed source descriptions into a proposed consolidated register and compared the output to the released records. No tray, volume or service procedure was operated in this exercise.

The draft preserves that the unusual order was observed. It removes the control needed to distinguish a timed irregularity from ordinary desk movement.

Working copy; proposed fields, not an adopted register.

Reading copy · extract-RA-IR-2026-002-R03 · page 1

Acknowledgement exceptions

The proposed controlling register is incomplete at three points. Equipment receipt 43 acknowledges a brass tray, not insertion of a personnel correction. The dispatch request for that correction has a destination but no receiving entry. The 1944 undertaking requires separately attributable evidence before an outside account is treated as returned or replaced.

These are different transactions. A shared file number does not make one signature discharge them all. The 1961 counterfoil and witnessed comparison should remain available with their ordinary comparator.

Audit as of 22 September 2026. Later personnel review is not part of this original.

Reading copy · extract-RA-IR-2026-002-R04 · page 1

Executed determination

The General Reconciliation proposal of 15 September 2026 is held. Its consolidation authority is not established by the acknowledgements it relies upon. The 18 September rehearsal demonstrates that the proposed register would omit the ordinary comparison and treat an unacknowledged personnel insertion as closed.

Under the custodial undertaking accepted on 20 June 1944, an outside account cannot be deemed returned or superseded merely by changing the office register. Unreturned independent reference copies are not deemed surrendered. A personnel exoneration entered after source review may not be automatically superseded by this process.

Records & Access will retain the 1961 ordinary comparison, the equipment and correspondence distinction, and the reviewed personnel finding as separately citable descriptions. This determination takes effect on signature; the proposal has no standing as a replacement register.

M. Avery · Head of Records & Access · signed and entered 27 September 2026

Executed institutional hold. No reader action is required for it to take effect.

Reading copy · extract-RA-IR-2026-002-R05 · page 1

Reservation on the proposed register

The ordinary comparison should accompany any description of the North Reading Room entry. Receipt 43 records the withdrawal of a brass tray; it cannot fill a blank acknowledgement for a personnel enclosure or dispose of a separately held copy.

A copy may remain in service after the equipment has been withdrawn. Our section has seen descriptions acquire further references after transfer between offices. I reserve the possibility that a sufficiently full description reproduces a relationship beyond its originating office. That is an operational concern offered for review, not a demonstrated rule in every collection.

The proposal should therefore be held until outside accounts, office custody and personnel corrections have separate dispositions. A shorter register may be easier to administer; ease does not make its missing fields true.

L. Carden · Collections & Custody · 23 September 2026

Retained departmental carbon. The author's operational theory is not an institutional finding.

Reading copy · extract-RA-IR-2026-002-R06 · page 1

Disposition ledger

Return of an independent reference copy is not a condition of this finding. The signed hold was entered before preparation of this public schedule. An unreturned copy remains an outstanding account, not a consent to the proposed register.

N. Greer · Records & Access · entry checked by M. Avery · 27 September 2026

Disposition ledger · page 1 of 2.