Chained books

I researched the monastery's library for writings about the Order of Saint Tetrimon, in particular their early history in the Khanid Kingdom, after their banishment from the Empire. That is when they would have tried to smuggle ancient relics out of the empire.

Books like to hide from us. You think you put your book near the sofa, but it turns out to be at the bedside. The more books you have around you, the harder it gets to keep track of their location, especially in an ancient and undigitized collection. The easiest way was to actually chain books to the bookshelf or lectern. That way, they cannot get very far from where they are supposed to be. 

Now, for a small collection, you can just keep a list of all the books you have. But for a big collection, you will need help finding the book. That is where shelfmark tags come in. 

Books get a tag, usually on the spine, and that mark is basically a set of coordinates, like latitude and longitude for a planet's global positioning system. For example, if you see written in red lettering III A 3 you know the book's location is bookshelf III, right side (left one would be written in black), top shelf, third book - each successive coordinate in the label lets the librarian zero in more closely on the book's location.

On the side of the bookshelf or lectern, you can find a shelf list. That is also arranged "geographically". The top of the left column corresponds to the top of the left part of the shelf. The collection of various shelf lists is itself turned into a book, the very earliest versions of library catalogs, and its place is on the first lectern. 

The oldest volumes of the library of the Tetrimon Order of Saint Jamyl Monastery, the ones that date back to the days of the Khanid order of Paladins and their interaction with the Tetrimon knights, are not digitized or catalogued, but they do use the shelfmark tag system. 

After an entire day of getting my bearings using this ancient GPS, I found that what I am looking for should be on bookshelf LXXIII. 

However, between shelves LXXII and LXXIV is just a blank wall without bookshelf or lectern.

OOC picture credit: https://www.herefordcathedral.org/chained-library