Twilight of a Victorian Registry: The Treasury's Paper Room before 1920.

Experiential knowledge of government business among clerks in the Treasury's paper room stimulated new logs to control transit of records and classified indexes to expand recall of business beyond personal memory. Despite a flowering of expertise in records matters before the First World War, effective changes were compromised by the volume of paper work, inherent limitations of format, and the increased speed of business. Additional staff was the favoured option for keeping up because it did not imply re-thinking the format of records, optimum linking of their physical and intellectual control, or changed operations of the paper room and re-assignment of staff. Classified indexes, a Victorian achievement in the Treasury, held the central service together until the restrictions of format and space for files and for registration notes and for paper room operations led to a new system of registration and classification in 1920. The Victorian separation of initial registration from ultimate classification was replaced by the union of the two processes at the beginning; the principle of file formation changed from one letter, one file, to one subject, one file. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]