collections

A primer of the alphabet — the letters gathered first, so everything spelled later can be read. An abecedary holds no sentences; it holds what sentences are made of.

A bound set of works meant to be met together. The ordering is part of the making.

A keeping of records meant to outlast those who made them. An archive's discipline is that nothing is quietly removed.

A book of maps bound together — many territories held in one hand. An atlas does not own the lands it shows; it lets any traveler see how they join.

A book of beasts — living things gathered and described, each as it actually lives. A bestiary does not cage its creatures; it tells how each one moves through the world.

A container things are dropped into together. Bucketing groups by rough similarity rather than exact kind.

Things gathered and carried as one. A bundle is a convenience for the carrier, not a claim of belonging.

An ordered account of what a collection holds. A catalogue does not hold the things; it makes them findable.

The ordered register of works — each entry a thing known, placed, and findable.

To gather things together on purpose. Collecting is what makes a set out of scattered instances.

Things gathered and kept together on purpose. What makes it a collection is the gathering, not the likeness.

To bring scattered things into one solid whole. Consolidation reduces the count and should not reduce the content.

Bodies of collected text taken together as material to study. A corpus is defined by what was gathered, and its edges are a decision.

A body of collected text taken as material to study. Its edges are a decision someone made.

A full ordered set of cards, and a flat raised surface. Both are things laid out ready to be used.

A list that tells you where things are rather than holding them. A directory is a map of a place, kept in the place.

A way in, and a thing written down. Both senses cross from outside a record to inside it.

What is beyond the necessary. Extras are the part that says care was taken rather than only duty.

A held collection of records, kept in order. First a literal thread - documents strung on a wire so they could be found again.

A container for grouping things kept together. It holds without changing what it holds.

A book of formulas — compounds written down with their compositions, so any hand can read how a thing is made. A formulary does not make the medicine; it tells truly what is in it.

Several things treated as one. Held together by something shared rather than by attachment.

An ordered guide to where things are within a body of work. An index does not hold contents; it holds addresses.

A count of what is actually present. An inventory is the check against what a map claims.

One entry among others in a list. Not originally a thing at all - the Latin word for 'also', repeated down a page until the marker became the thing it marked.

A gathered set of what is needed for one job. A kit is assembled by someone who knew what would be wanted.

Where discarded material is put. In this house, the raw unrefined ground that everything else is dug out of.

A kept collection meant to be drawn on by others. Its purpose is not storage but retrieval.

An ordered enumeration of things. First the strip of cloth at an edge - the border became the record written along it.

To put into an order that makes things findable. Organising creates no new content and changes what can be reached.

Things bundled together and offered as one. A package decides what travels together.

Two things taken together as one unit. A pair is more than two — the pairing is itself a fact.

An ordered set of pieces chosen to be heard together. The choosing and the ordering are both authorship.

A gathered quantity held in common and drawn from as needed. What is in it belongs to the pool, not to any one drawer.

Things waiting in the order they arrived. A queue's fairness is that position is earned by waiting.

Reel: a row of shots laid on one clock and read as a single run. A shot is a slug, a size key, a move key, a duration key and an order, and the reel takes shots in their order and gives each one its start and its length along the clock, with the whole runtime derived rather than declared. Keys are stored and numbers derived, so a reel holds no picture and no motion of its own — only which shots, in what order, and where each one falls in time. Shots as keys and durations in, the reel on its clock with each shot's start and length, and the runtime, out.

An authoritative list kept so that entries can be relied on. A registry's worth is that someone maintains it.

A collection defined by membership alone. What matters is what is in it, not the order or the arrangement.

Things laid one on another, reached from the top. The last placed is the first available.

The keeping of things against a later need. Storage assumes retrieval; without it, it is only holding.

A place things are kept until needed, and the keeping itself. Storage assumes a later retrieval.

A set of related things offered together. A suite is designed to be used as one, not merely sold as one.

Three taken together as one. Three is the smallest number that can hold a majority and a dissent at once.

Three taken together as one unit. Three is the smallest number that can hold a majority and a dissent.