1098. Arrangement of correspondence (collections and files.)
(a)English correspondence shall be classified and arranged first by collections and secondly within each collection by files, each file having its consecutive number within the collection and its distinctive subject or title.A single file will consist of every letter received and the draft of every letter issued, except half-margin memos, of which no copy is kept (see regulation 178) in the course of a consecutive correspondence on one subject. Each paper shall be placed in chronological order, the first letter issued or received being placed at the bottom.To each letter shall be assigned a consecutive number on the file known as the serial number. This number will be marked on the letter in the proper place. With each letter will be kept any enclosures and any notes or orders which may have been written on a separate paper. These enclosures and notes should be stitched or tagged to the letter to which they belong. They will not be given a separate serial number on the file. Each file will be kept in a file cover, Bengal Form No. 11.A collection is an aggregate of files, the subject of which falls under some general classification, and which are kept together for convenience and economy of space.(b)A list is given in Appendix LXIII of collections and files. The collections should ordinarily be adopted, but the Superintendent with the sanction of the Deputy Inspector-General, may open additional collections.The list of files is not intended for general adoption. In each district the Superintendent should prepare a standard list of files which are required in each collection and these files should, so far as possible, be given the same number on each successive year. But new files shall of course be opened on any given year as occasion requires.(c)If a letter be the commencement of a new correspondence and not in continuation of an existing file, it will form the nucleus of a new file to which will be assigned the next consecutive file number within the collection to which it belongs and also a title indicating its subject. An entry of the new file shall at once be made in the file index.
