I had to read this book for the orientation session of my library science program, so my thoughts about it are kind of confused with what the "official" message was. Here goes, though. Nicholson Baker is a novelist and essayist who cares about books. In the course of researching an article, he discovers some troubling information on how and why libraries sometimes discard their books. Double Fold is his "expose" of the library profession, which has been destroying (in his opinion perfectly sound and usable) original copies of old newspapers and books in order to preserve them on sometimes faulty new technology such as microfilm. His conclusion, through his investigative journalism, is that there was a cabal of futurist, gadget-oriented, cold war era librarians that invented the idea of paper "turning to dust" over time in order to push their pet preservation projects and procure additional funding and shelf space for their libraries.

Ok. So. This book was assigned because it was highly controversial. The opinion among actual archivists seems to mainly be that Baker has radically misrepresented the motives of the field, doesn't understand certain basic premises of the way libraries and archives actually work, and generally could have been nicer about it, while still having a few good points. I more or less agree with that: there's no need to introduce a conspiracy theory into the mix, and Baker really doesn't consider the problems of archival appraisal (basically, we can't save everything - we could never store it or make use of it - so we have to choose what to keep and what to toss). He may very well have stirred up a lot of ill will towards a profession that works for the common good of our societal memory in a largely thankless capacity.

On the other hand, I am much more sympathetic to many of his arguments than my professors seemed to want me to be. I would like to see a good empirical study of how long paper actually lasts, and find it somewhat troubling that there really isn't one out there currently (that I know of). Also, microfilm is pretty bad. If you're losing such significant amounts of information with your new technology - well, maybe don't jump into it so far. I'm interested in how the debate applies to digitization - I'll be interested to learn what the stumbling blocks of that will be, and I hope the field will be suitably cautious about it.

So, overall, it was an interesting book. It took a long time to read because I kept having to stop to think through how and why I agreed or disagreed with it. It's a very provocative book. Read it if you're interested in archives and the controversy over original sources, but it should probably be read with an accompanying rebuttal (any online review by someone with a PhD in Library Science will probably do), and taken with a grain of salt. If you took out the accusatory tone the book would have some good points, then again, it wouldn't be a very interesting book without its tone. 4 stars for thought-provoking-ness? ( )

I gave up on this book. It is due back to the library in a couple of days. Even though it was highly recommended by my professors, I just couldn't get into it. Lots of people say how great this book is. However, I can't stop thinking that he doesn't even work in a library! He doesn't go into enough depth explaining things that NEED to be highlighted about preservation. He gives strange examples of things. ( )

Nicholson Baker feels strongly about the importance of libraries as depositories of information. They are to hold for us now and future generations of information-seekers the original, physical texts of newspapers and books regardless of their current or past popularity. What may not be popular today may be tomorrow and if the original is gone, we may be left with an unreadable copy in the form of illegible or deteriorated Microfilm or even an obsolete digital form. Double Fold is a critical and opinionated look on what has been happening and continues today to the vast collection of newspapers and books in libraries. During the 1980s and early 1990s, the movement to preserve books and periodicals for the future led to the destruction of the original copies in order to film them on Microfilm. Regardless of whether the preservation is done because of the deterioration of the texts or to make space in libraries, Baker laments why we cannot have both the original and a copy and presents what we lose in those copies.

While Baker’s efforts to preserve (maybe more appropriate “conserve”) the many newspaper runs at his American Newspaper Repository is laudable, it is also leads to more questions for information professionals as examined by the Society of American Archivists in their response to his book. Richard Cox in “Don’t Fold Up” points out the impossibility of archivists to save everything (or even the copy). The fact is that “libraries and archives have many other competing priorities with limited resources.".

Although Double Fold was written before much of the mass digitization and born digital going on today, I have to believe Baker is still criticizing much of the work being done in libraries and archives. What Baker fears if we lose so many original texts is the opportunity to know or find history for ourselves. ( )

Baker makes some really strong arguments regarding the preservation of original artifacts and the sometimes misguided and wasteful policies by certain leading librarians, but his petty indignant tone and personal attacks on the subjects of his scorn tend to undermine his major points. Of course you might add that someone like Baker who was trying to draw attention to his arguments may have added his incendiary comments on purpose in order to forward his agenda. In the end, Baker demonstrates that he is wiling to put his money where his mouth is and his passion for books and newspapers seems very genuine. ( )

Can it really be this bad? Have to see how all the librarians weigh in but, not to worry, Baker is a novelist so this isn't dry in the least. A real page-turner.

Re the few reviews I looked at here: I don't think Baker is arguing for the preservation of everything. At least, that isn't the conviction I came away with. But, jeez, a full run of the New York Herald Tribune or the New York Times? Shouldn't several full runs be stored lovingly in several, half a dozen, libraries? Surely, Northwestern would be happy to take all the Chicago papers? Boston U the Boston papers and so on?

Was one woman in the US really so influential in the microfilm transition? What has been the impetus in other countries? All especially surprising because is there anyone that doesn't hate microfilm?

I'm wondering what's happening to the newspaper archives in less developed countries. Maybe this warning has stopped them in their tracks. In Southeast Asia, academics, govt officials et al depend on Cornell above all to have the best collection of originals. Has it microfilmed or digitized all this stuff? ( )

http://culturalsnow.blogspot.com/2009...

A few thoughts arising from Nicholson Baker's Double Fold, about the continuing drive in libraries to destroy original copies of books and periodicals, replacing them with microfilm and other media.

It's as much a bureaucratic farce as anything. Daily newspapers, as Baker reminds us, tend to come out in several editions through the day, to catch up with late-breaking news, sports results and so on: standard library policy, however, is to put just one edition on microfilm. The problem with this becomes obvious when considering the Sept 17, 1970 edition of the Chicago Sun-Times. The early edition quoted President Nixon's off-the-cuff remarks about a potential crisis in the Middle East; White House staff complained, and the words were cut from the later edition. Guess which edition was saved to film?

Baker quotes historian Jeffrey Kimball:

"For my new research project, a larger study of 'smoking-gun' documents, Nixon's quoted remarks have a critical bearing, but all I can get hold of now is the microfilm copy of the evening edition of the Sun-Times, which does not quote Nixon's comments; that is, all microfilm copies of this newspaper for this date seem to be of the evening edition."

So, not only does the quotation not exist; but because we can't compare the two editions, all evidence of its removal has also gone, like Trotsky airbrushed from the revolution. The only difference is that this state of affairs seems to be the result of sort-sighted cost-cutting rather than conspiracy.

One of Baker's particular beefs with microfilm is that it doesn't offer a true copy: we lose colour; marginal text is often cut off. Scanned pages saved to disk are often little better, with text recognition software still inferior to the combination of human eye and human brain. The author goes so far as to set up a non-profit organisation to save some back issues of the Chicago Tribune that were destined for disposal:

"Sixty-three thousand dollars, or about fifty dollars a volume, may seem like a lot of money to pay for old news, but it's actually a bargain. To buy the equivalent microfilm run from Bell and Howell would cost about $177,000. We're at a bizarre moment in history, when you can have the real thing for considerably less than it would cost to buy a set of crummy black-and-white snapshots of it which you can't read without the help of a machine."

Baudrillard, of course, wouldn't have found such a state of affairs bizarre. Nor would he have particularly raised an eyebrow at the title of a report by digitisation champion Michael Lesk: "Substituting Images for Books". ( )

This guy is pretty passionate about preservation. I fell for the emotional entreaties, even while my cynical side thought, "We can't keep everything." On the whole, I think he's got some excellent points, and I do tend to agree with him. ( )

Interesting but seemingly unaware of the pressure on libraries.

Nicholson Baker’s Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper is a fiery polemic dedicated to the task of protecting what he sees as one of our nation’s most important resources: our libraries’ massive stockpile of seldom-used older books and newspapers. As Baker explains, the extent of our paper reserves of old newspapers and rarely read old books is dwindling, often being chopped up and “preserved” (that is, their content, rather than their form, is preserved) in either microform or a digital format.
Baker’s position is not a nuanced one; we need to save everything. To do this, libraries need to purchase warehouses, warehouses basically without end, so that not a Sun-Times or musty tome is thrown aside. The very first sentence in the summary on the back cover reads “The ostensible purpose of a library is to preserve the printed word” which shows Baker may have a basic confusion between the definition of a library and the definition of a repository, but never mind: the point is, Baker says, a library neglects its duties when it throws away disused materials.

Baker’s writing style is eloquent and engaging; however, the entire book is dominated by a one-sided and hostile tone, along with his distinctly uncharitable characterization of his opponents.

I think the basic philosophical difficulty in Baker’s position can be found in the chapter with the title “A Swifter Conflagration.” Here, Baker fully reveals his philosophical position that all pieces of written media are valuable as individual objects. It is not merely enough that a rarely-used book’s contents are preserved somewhere; merely disposing of a particular object is itself always a dereliction of duty.

Baker says:
“The truth is that all books are physical artifacts, without exception, just as all books are bowls of ideas [i.e. textual content]. They are things and utterances both. And libraries, [Baker’s ally] believes, since they own, whether they like it or not, collections of physical artifacts, must aspire to the conditions of museums. All their books are treasures, in a sense…”

This is a rather overstated thesis. Some books and newspapers are valuable essentially for their own sake, rare books such as the Gutenberg Bibles, for example. However, it doesn’t follow that every library must preserve every non-duplicate book or newspaper on its shelves, some of which, such as pulp novels, are almost certainly disposable once their shelf-life is over. What Baker calls for is for libraries to devote large portions of their physical holdings to items that, not virtually, but literally, do not circulate.

There are times in Double Fold when Baker seems to be using the sheer confidence of his vituperation to slip some questionable logic past the reader. At one point Baker complains that the Library of Congress threw out ten million dollars worth of public property. However, his criterion for this figure is replacement value. This is a somewhat meaningless, almost sneaky figure. A lot of otherwise worthless things might be rather pricey to replace. Being difficult to replace does not make something valuable in the first place.

This is not say there are not some worthwhile themes in Double Fold. Baker’s complaints about microform are well taken, his call for a national repository even more so. While I may disagree that individual libraries are responsible for every physical document they’ve ever possessed, it would be nice for historians if they could expect to find them somewhere.

Baker also provides the reader with an entertaining and occasionally fascinating history of book “preservation,” including the disastrous use of large, book-filled, black-goo spurting tanks of explosive gas, formerly owned by NASA. Another memorable anecdote involves the creation of paper from the wrappings of Egyptians mummies.

The fact that Baker's book is quite biased and sometimes infuriating should not dissuade an intelligent reader from giving it a shot; however, some practical knowledge of libraries and a questioning attitude are prescribed. ( )

Baker believes libraries are the guardians of everything ever printed, and should never deselect (remove) any material that is still in good enough shape toread. He is especially passionate about this in regards to newspapers. He believes microfilming newspapers does not preserve the original work. He does have a point, in that black and white photos are pretty well ruined and there's no way to do color photos. The quality of print is often lacking as well. Not to mention that scrolling through it can make you puke. That said, he's not against microfilming, he's just against throwing out the print copies once the microfilm has been received. His answer is simple--just build warehouses to store all the stuff the public rarely wants to use.

Yeah right. Tell that to the tax payers. Maybe the Library of Congress could do this, although they do not, but I'm not sure that's really their mission either. ( )

Baker caused quite the stir in the library/archival world with this publication. A great read and makes one who cares for books, both professionally and personally, to think seriously about preservation and the future. ( )

Our libraries are saving space and money by destroying our history. Precious books and newspapers are literally being cut up and tossed out, our only memory of them on deteriorating microfilm. We no longer have complete editions of most of our great newspapers. This book will infuriate and sadden you.