They arrived at the library.
The royal library is very huge almost like the size of one of the royal chambers , which cover about seven hundred square meters.
Whilst at the doors immediately ahead, there is a huge collection of shelves separated by a passage which divides the room into left and right
On each side,there are two lines of shelves, one in front of the other. For each line there are eight pairs of shelves .In each pair there are atleast hundred and fifty books. Such an arrangement is duplicated to the other equally duplicated. Meaning that there are a total of thirty two shelves in this library , with close to four thousand books.
Looking to the middle of the room there are twenty medium sized tables that have been arranged to ten on each side of the room. The tables are then equally spaced from each other to avoid crowding. The tables are kept extremely clean because there should never be any grime on the books for obvious reasons plus the fact that this is a palace everything should be at its utmost perfection all the time
This means that the library is cleaned eight times every three months and near the end of the third month is the eighth cleaning which is a vigorous session. The latter is extremely laborious therefore twenty to twenty five workers are assigned to its cleaning.
They would divide themselves among the chores. Some start off by stacking the tables to the further sides of the rooms . Afterwards they sweep, mop , dry and polish the floor all in the same day. They use a wide array of chemicals that disinfect, shine and preserve the quality of the material. After they are done, one could literally walk on the bare floor with white socks and wind out without a speck of dust on them. If the chemicals were edible, some people would have no shame in putting what had fallen to the floor in their mouth .
While those do that, another group which is always the largest, remove each of the four thousand books from the shelves. They then dust and polish the wooden shelves, dry the polish and then they restack the books back where they found them. Though this task is the simplest, it also the most longest taking nine to twelve hours to complete.
After the polishing is done , the last team bring back the tables then arrange them exactly as they found them. They then go on to add wood polish to the tables and dry the polish so that the chemicals don't stick to the user or to the books.
After wards this third team place small wet cushions in teacup cages, at several points of the perimeter of the library and are left there for atleast four hours . The cushions are infused in a chemical and that chemical absorbs the strong smell of polishes leaving the room feeling fresh. But of course there is still that tiny scent of polish which is good as it gives hints that the room has just been cleaned. That is the condition of the room at this point as the last cleaning session was just two days ago.
Going along the wall that has the entry , there are very exquisite pine wood Shoji windows that let a beautiful amount of light into the room. On each side of the door, there are exactly three long ones running from the half a meter from the roof to atleast a meter from the ground. Their whole length is a little over three meters long with a width of one meter.
In front of the windows on the left side of the door there is a long table of two meters long and a meter two meters off the ground. This is the library s help desk. On it there are some writing papers, catalogues and a few directories on how the books are arranged in the library. There is also a medium sized book that is the lender's book. It's used for entering the details of those who borrow books. The details are entered in the form of membership numbers and the book borrowed as well as when it's supposed to be return . The large book underneath the lender's book is the book record. It's for recording all books in the library and their quantity as well as the volumes or versions present. It works like a stock record but for books in the library.
On the other side with the windows there is a long twenty slot shoe rack shelf.
For the left and right walls , aside from the six windows that replicate the ones by the help desk, each has three really long oblong shaped lanterns . They have different patterns of lines and circles on them that are photo-phobic. Meaning that when the lanterns are lit, the patterns fade away like they are drawn by a substance that uses the opposite phenomena of invisible ink.
These lanterns were made in the capital but their resources were brought in all the way from DalBit Province and YangHen village in Baram Province.
DalBit rivers are famous for being lined with strong reeds . The durable reeds grow seasonally and are also very expensive. YangHen village is one of the villages that have ample trees that are used for making the most refined paper. Eighty percent of the books in this library are made from YangHen paper but the writing paper that the royal family uses and makes some of the very important books comes from papyrus which surprisingly only grows in the western part of the country . So because of its short supply, this type of paper is exorbitantly expensive but money is not a problem for the palace.
Anyway these lanterns have a mechanism that allows to control how much light is emitted. It is a new innovation that is only about half a century old so most reputable places and high ranking officials s mansions have these kind of lanterns. But as expected they cost a lot of money to obtain so not everyone has acess to them and the become limited to the uppers class
Though the library has a simple structure, its prestige and significance will never cease to echo volumes. The reason being that the country s most elite of the elite often grace the space with their presence.
Because this country is divided into seven provinces, each province has an overseer or a decider for that place.Sort of like a king but not a king.That overseer is a Consul but commonly called a governor and the governor is usually appointed from the highest ranking magistrate or a reputed official from Judiciary..
The procedure for allocating a province to a Consul was not difficult as they are just pointed to a place on the map and told that they are the governor.
The logic of making a province is also quite simple.
The king looked at the resources each space in the country offered and then he collected those places into one and made a province just like DalBit Province, governed by Zhang YouHua and Baram Province governed by Wang SongMa.
For each province there is just a random combination of villages and towns . And a town is an assimilation of villages , the minimum being five. So saying that someone is governor of a province with five villages and the other having two towns. The latter is more note worthy as that equates to ten or eleven villages.
That being that, the job of a governor is like he is the representative of the king for that piece of land. So whatever he says happens, disobeying him as the king s representative is liking disobeying the king.
Them being representatives also means that they have to report everything to the king by submitting written reports to the king s board for assessment, especially for every major decision they make like fluctuating prices of certain resources like kerosene.
These reports are taken to the capital by a representative of the governor usually a high ranking official . When they come here, they are always accompanied by some scholars, appointed by their teachers where they are studying to join the province s government
They would come here to understudy the proceedings that happen during the handling of the report. Reason being that some day they will be the ones who will be presenting the report and will have to answer some of the questions that would be asked..
During such proceedings, some specially appointed officials called secretariats, are expected to always be there without fail. They handle all business of their province. From all aspects like agriculture, health, education, finance, diplomacy to mention just a few. They just record everything neatly and chronologically like secretaries. Whatever the representative of the province brings to the capital, during and after the assessment of that report, the secretariats note down everything.
After that they take back the data, compile ,analyze and restructure it without paraphrasing anything. And then they produce several documents that are taken to the high officials like assistant chancellor , for the cardinal point which that province in , that were handling the processing of the report to validate what the secretariats have complied.
Only after then can the reports be added to the files relating to the province and some kept for a representative to take back or to have sent to the rep if the report was coded emerald green meaning a response from the capital is expected promptly.
It's worth noting that a chancellor here has four assistants. They oversee the actions and whatever happens in provinces. These provinces are further grouped into four cardinal points and then each assistant chancellor is allocated one of them. Their duty would be to chair all report assessments for all provinces in that cardial point . After that they report to the chancellor. And as expected there is yet another channel they need to go through and that is the vice chancellor. Bureaucracy is extremely important in this country and that is probably a good thing with some distinct flaws.
They report to the vice chancellor and he then goes to the chancellor . Usually once the documents are signed by the A.chancellor, it's considered credible. But for complex matters the documents can go up the political hierarchy with on very serious set-ups, really complex cases reaching the Senate commonly called the king.
It's not to say that the king leaves things to the chancellor and his help but that some matters are to feeble to be tended to by the king. Similar to how it's unreasonable to take a conflict over color choices for a dress can't be taken to court but things like land right conflicts are worth the magistrate. So the king does get reports and minutes from the secretariats and royal secretaries about the report assements. Just because the king is absent doesn't mean he shall remain dumbfounded.
Anyway the scholars and representative can come accompanied by an accountant if the matter brought by the representative is dealing with finance or there is something that the province needs the accountant to look through at the capital. For this to be possible a letter has to be written by the governor permitting this team to view the documents
When this is the case, it is sort of inarguable to use a private accountant. But in other occasions where there is no viewing of documents, just reading and presenting a financial report, then the province can use either a private or foreign accountant. Though the latter seems bizarre to use, most provinces tend to favour it a lot because the capital hires the country s best workers, best doctors, best singers, best craftsmen. The best of everything is all here.
However the use of foreign accountants poses a problem as they really just have monetary gain to their mind and not the interest of the province. They charge exorbitant prices for micro matters and are very direct . But even if they are so crude their output is as high as their charges. Afterall their main goal after school was to get money from filthy rich aristocrats that come to the capital occasionally or even summon the accountant to their homes to handle their finances. And those sort of people want creme de la creme service.
Withal the scholars and accountants tend to visit the library to study the documents that the secretariats have given them about their provinces.
The extent to which these people can see is also dictated by the letter from the governor.
There is no need to worry about corruption or rebellious behavior because the last people who dared to go farther than what the governor had permitted them to see are as of now becoming decaying matter that had been decapitated promptly and had their adult family members hung and the young boiled alive.
It's pretty gruesome but political matters are no joke. A life in this country can never be enough to compensate for a political wrong-doing!!