Colonial Secretary Guide - Flipbook - Page 21
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Each year the Colonial Secretary's Office marked up two volumes of index-registers - one for entries A-L,
the other for entries M-Z. The use of index-registers in this way had several advantages. It eliminated the
necessity for separate indexing (by making the system self-indexing), and allowed papers of an
ephemeral nature to be destroyed en bloc after a cursory examination of subject headings in the indexregisters.
In 1922 another major change took place in the registration of the in-letters. The new system was based
on self-indexing cards and the volumes were used only to record file movements. The cards were filed
within broad classifications and subdivided within this:
Eg.
Boats
Boat, Albury
Boat, Ballina, etc.
Boatshed
Boatshed. Albury
Boatshed. Ballina, etc.
The guide cards record the subdivisions. Preceding the main index is a reference index with blue cards
recording personal cross-references and orange cards subject cross-references. The registration numbers
were divided into two sequences, A and B. The A sequence includes all letters registered in the card
index A-L, the B sequence those registered M-Z.
Out-letter Systems, 1826-1915
From 1810 to 1825 separate out-letter books in the Secretary's Office had been kept for letters addressed
within the Colony, letters sent outside the Colony, and letters to Military Stations. These out-letter books
contained manuscript copies of letters sent; no outwards registration system was adopted. With the
reorganization of the Colonial Secretary's inwards correspondence in 1826 there was a corresponding
reorganization of the out-letter books along similar lines to the "pigeon hole" system of keeping
correspondence in the Colonial Secretary's press. Copies of all letters sent were entered "in the 26 books
(i.e. out-letter books) now kept for the purpose", a process "so methodical and complete as scarcely to
admit of improvement". (37) Indeed, the system remained basically unaltered until 1915 when, like so
many other long-established institutions, it became a casualty of the First World War.
The letterbooks were resorted during the 1888-90 rearrangement of the early records previously
mentioned. However being bound volumes the order of individual documents was safe from too much
interference, and although more specific series have since been recognized there was no difficulty in
restoring the proper sequence.
During the nineteenth century a number of technological changes had taken place in the method of
making a record of letters sent. Letter-press copying of out-letters was begun in the Colonial Secretary's
Office in 1873, replacing manuscript copies from drafts. The introduction of the typewriter led to the
creation of carbon copies of letters sent. It did not become normal practice among government
departments to attach carbon copies of letters sent to inwards correspondence until about 1906 because if
the practice of keeping a letter-press copy of the original letter had been discontinued, the situation would
have arisen in which there was no complete record of all letters sent, particularly when the department
concerned had originated action. To have registered outwards correspondence together with inwards
correspondence would doubtless have aggravated the problem of coping with the registration of the everincreasing volume of inwards correspondence, the symptoms of which can already be discerned in the
different attempts to handle this material. Finally, there was the added convenience that the letter-press
copy was made in a book which was already bound and which could be indexed at any time.