Constitution & by-laws
The Charter
Articles of the Society, governing membership, the accession number, the
loan process, and the consequences of non-return.
ArticleI
Of the Society and its Object
The Procyon Society is constituted for the location, recovery, cataloguing and retention of objects. Its object is stated in full by its motto and requires no elaboration: Everything is findable.
The Society takes its name from Procyon lotor, the common raccoon, and from Procyon, the eighth-brightest star in the night sky, in Canis Minor. Members are advised that the ambiguity is deliberate and that no clarification will be offered to persons who ask which was meant.
ArticleII
Of Membership
Membership is by founding only. The roll is closed and consists of two names. It was closed at the moment it was opened.
Persons who are not members may be recognised as Friends of the Society, which confers the right to be listed on a page and no other right whatsoever.
ArticleIII
Of the Accession Number
Every object admitted to the collection shall be assigned the next available accession number in sequence, and that number shall be applied to the object itself by stamp, in archival pigment ink.
The number is not decorative. The number is the object's name for the purposes of these Articles, and an object bearing a number is understood to be in the permanent care of the Society regardless of its physical location, its apparent possessor, or the confidence with which that possessor asserts otherwise.
ArticleIV
Of the Instruments
The Society recognises four marks and their proper application:
- The sigil, for anything under fifteen millimetres — favicon, wax seal, game components.
- The horizontal lockup, for the site header, letterhead, and correspondence.
- The shield, for physical objects: stickers, box lids, and the backs of jackets.
- The round seal, the formal mark, for this Charter and for printed certificates.
Vinyl on a book endpaper is permanent and will take the paper with it on removal. For anything the Society actually cares about, the rubber stamp is the gentler instrument. This is a rule of practice and not of law, but it has the force of both.
ArticleV
Of the Loan
An object may be released to a non-member upon entry in the Ledger. The entry shall record the object, the borrower, the date out, and the date due.
The standard term is fourteen days. The term may be extended by agreement. It may not be extended by silence, by the passage of time, by the borrower forgetting, or by the Society failing to mention it, and the Society wishes to be very clear that it is not going to mention it.
ArticleVI
Of the Return
An object is returned when it is physically restored to the shelf from which it came and the Ledger is marked accordingly. It is not returned when the borrower intends to return it, has been meaning to return it, has it in the car, or is fairly sure it is at the cottage.
ArticleVII
Of Non-Return
Where an object is not returned within its term, the Ledger shall show the date out, the date due, and — in the column reserved for the date of return — nothing.
This blank is the entirety of the penalty. The Society levies no fine, issues no demand, and will not raise the matter socially. The Ledger is published, sorted by days outstanding, and updated daily without further intervention. It will continue to be published, and to be sorted, and to be updated, for as long as the object remains out and the Society remains solvent.
The Society holds that a number counting upward on a public page is more eloquent than any letter it could compose, and considerably more difficult to lose track of.
The remedy is available at any time and consists of one action.
ArticleVIII
Of Objects in the Field
An object recovered from a cache, a box lot, a culvert or a flea market is accessioned on the same terms as one acquired by purchase, and its record shall state the circumstances of its recovery in full.
The Society considers how a thing was acquired to be a more informative field than what it cost, and has never once been proved wrong on this point.
ArticleIX
Of Onward Lending
A borrower may not lend an object onward. Where this occurs, the object passes out of the Ledger and into a category these Articles do not contemplate, and the original borrower remains the entry against which the days accumulate.
This Article is under review, which is to say it was drafted after the fact and in some temper.
ArticleX
Of the Live File
Working notes on an open investigation are not published. A theory published while a hunt is live is a theory donated to the competition.
Upon closure of a file, the Society shall publish the post-mortem in full, including every line of reasoning that turned out to be wrong. The Society holds that an honest account of arriving confidently at the wrong lake is of more use to the reader than a triumphant account of arriving at the right one.
ArticleXI
Of Discretion
The Society shall not publish the coordinates of its own premises, an itemised public valuation of its holdings, or the full legal name of any borrower.
A catalogue of everything valuable in a house, on a site that also announces when its keepers are in the bush for the weekend, is more information than the Society cares to volunteer.
ArticleXII
Of Amendment
These Articles may be amended by unanimous agreement of the membership, which is to say by both members, which is to say over dinner.
Article VII is not subject to amendment.
