The fine print

A reading room keeps a quiet desk. This note says what the desk notices about a visit, what it never asks for, and what happens to a letter once it is answered.

What the desk notes

The desk serves these pages as flat files. It keeps no account, sets no reading profile and runs no tracker of its own. The host that serves the room may keep ordinary server logs, the address a request came from, the page asked for, the time, the way any shelf of public files is used.

Letters left at the desk

A question sent to the desk carries whatever the reader put in it: the question itself and the address it was sent from. The desk keeps the letter long enough to answer it, then files the answer, not the letter, on the shelf. The desk does not lend, sell or post its mail.

What the room never asks

The desk never asks a reader for a name, a card, an account or a signature. The only thing a slip carries is a question, and the only thing the drawer carries is the answer.