Every register has its rules, and this one is no different. These are the working rules of The Kiln Log, kept on the page the way a plant keeps them on the wall of the control room.

Dating and filing

Each entry carries the date it was written, and the register is read latest first, grouped by month. When a fact changes, the entry is not quietly rewritten: a new line is added or a new entry is opened lower on the line, so the register reads the way a plant's own log reads, as a sequence of dated observations rather than a smoothed-over present.

Sources and checking

An entry is stamped only after it has been checked against the public record: the standards bodies, the industry associations, the technical literature and the documents the trade itself publishes. The sources an entry leaned on are named in the margin of the page, so a reader can follow the same path the checker took. Where the record is silent, the entry says so rather than filling the gap.

The people on the page

Entries are entered by the keeper of the log and checked by a second reader; both names appear on the signature line of each entry, with the date and the reading time. The photographs that accompany an entry carry a human caption and a credit line. The register's only allegiance is to the reader who opens it.

Corrections

A register that is kept honestly is a register that is corrected openly. If an entry is wrong, the correction is made in the entry and noted, and the entry keeps its place on the line. The fastest way to put a correction into the log is the letter described on the contact page: a note with its source attached moves to the front of the shift.