Entering the building, the security people were interested in my belongings. They want to deduce from my belongings my intention. It appears they can deduce implications from materials to form an intention that I own.
Before this building came into existence, the objects were stored in numerous locations. The objects could be retrieved to be viewed by the public, but in practice you needed to register as a member which meant you got to justify why the objects would be of meaning and value to you. It’s more than shopping for nice looking items, items of necessity, or items of leisure.
Some might say the new system is over the top. Too burdensome to have an online account, log in, and request items you want to view. Not quite, it’s far easier compared to online shopping for a start!
But there’s a point that given the vast amount of objects this building has, probably 5% is used to a level that we can describe as “of use”. The rest is so rarely used that they remain at their address for months without a living soul come near.
- Is that a good use of resource?
- The building is huge.
- It looks like a modern township.
Should they lose just one item, quite apart from management procedures, a piece of history is lost, so as the lost of a piece of an artefact that has cultural and/or knowledge value. Countless tales of books, films, and photos they we had convinced ourselves that they had been lost, only to be recovered by chance at a far remote country, with the item exactly intact, as if it had been kept in the building not visited by human souls all this time.
One item out of all, it does not matter how many other items. It’s just one item. Utmost attention. It’s just one soul, utmost attention too.
The one item calls for attention. It has been there for a purpose. Its idleness or otherwise cannot be taken to read as its purpose or intention to itself, others or environment.
The one item is such because there’s no other. It is made so.
Online ordering is matched by speed of retrieval. However, the speed has not changed from the days before this building came into existence. It’s far too many items, complexity of storage and retrieval to speed up delivery. That’s somewhat immaterial when as a requester you are not going to retrieve it till a week later. The attention taken to ensure smooth delivery is of a very high standard so that a wide spectrum of users can be sure of the delivery of their item in order that they can do their analysis, write report, or other activities to meet deadlines.
