A reading room clerk cross-references each request against the shelf index before release. Bound volumes are stored spine-out, sorted first by collection and then by accession number. Restoration work proceeds slowly, one folio at a time, under controlled humidity.
Digitisation teams photograph each page twice, once in colour and once under raking light. A duplicate catalogue is kept off-site in case the reading room copy is ever damaged. Visiting scholars must register with the desk before any box leaves the stacks.
Figure 1. Accession trends across the last decade of the catalogue.
Conservation staff replace acidic folders with archival board on a rolling schedule. Every transfer between departments is logged, however small the parcel. The index cards were retired only after the electronic catalogue proved reliable.
Loan requests from other institutions are reviewed by a standing committee each quarter. A single misfiled ledger can take a researcher an entire afternoon to locate again. The reading room closes an hour before the rest of the building, for a final sweep.
