Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper

by Nicholson Baker

Paperback, 2002

Status

Available

Call number

025.2832

Genres

Collection

Your library

Publication

Vintage (2002), Edition: Illustrated, 384 pages

Description

"Since the 1950s, our country's libraries have followed a policy of "destroying to preserve": They have methodically dismantled their collections of original bound newspapers, cut up hundreds of thousands of so-called brittle books, and replaced them with microfilmed copies - copies that are difficult to read, lack all the color and quality of the original paper and illustrations, and deteriorate with age. Half a century on, the results on this policy are jarringly apparent: There are no longer any complete editions remaining of most of America's great newspapers. The loss to historians and future generations in inestimable." "In this book, writer Nicholson Baker explains the marketing of the brittle-paper crisis and the real motives behind it. Pleading the case for saving our newspapers and books so that they can continue to be read in their original forms, he tells how and why our greatest research libraries betrayed the public's trust by selling off or pulping irreplaceable collections. The players include the Library of Congress, the CIA, NASA, microfilm lobbyists, newspaper dealers, and a colorful array of librarians and digital futurists, as well as Baker himself, who discovers that the only way to save one important newspaper archive is to cash in his retirement savings and buy it - all twenty tons of it."--Jacket.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member AardvarkofHate

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.

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LibraryThing member audramelissa

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.

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LibraryThing member Foxen

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?

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LibraryThing member Periodista

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?

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LibraryThing member DouglasMoore77

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.

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LibraryThing member Aetatis

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.

LibraryThing member lilithcat

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.

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LibraryThing member emilyjo2001

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.

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LibraryThing member Sean191

Having read four other works by Baker and having heard interesting things about this book, I decided to pick it up. The previous reviews explain enough of what he's covering to not have to go into it. So I'll stick with my own views on the topic. First, I was initially annoyed because he covered

newspapers and I thought to myself, "Who is going to take the time to go through newspapers?" Of course, there are plenty of scholars willing to do so, so that was narrow-minded on my part. Anyway, as he delves further, it helped me to better-realize that newspapers, even more than books, need to be preserved in their original form (or at the very least, they needed to be preserved in their originals when duplication doesn't handle color prints and proper text copying).

Anyway, Baker eventually goes into conversation about books and the destruction of books. Contrary to what others may think, it is in fact the destruction of books being carried out. Information may (or may not) have been preserved by microfilm, but the actual physical books are gone. MIcrofilm is not a book. Yes, I have an attachment to books and I think something is being lost when society is moved away from the physical experience of reading.

Defending Baker against those who claim he's being petty or vindictive with his attacks on people who pushed the microfilming agenda - there are of course exceptions, but either people had a questionable motive for pushing what they were doing, or they were not knowledgeable enough to serve in the capacities they were serving. Either way, it's not excusable for individuals trusted with such an important part of human history to not be up to task.

Finally, for those essentially believing Baker has his head in the sand and finances and space are a huge issue for libraries, they need to look at the numbers. Look how much funding was provided for the microfilming. Is it to be believed that money couldn't have purchased storage? How about the fact that the microfilming itself needs saving? It's more delicate than the printed page - even the acidic page.

Again, a knee-jerk reaction to Baker's book isn't warranted. His notes are extensive and his references are thorough. I'd like to see proof of the same from those who had pushed the microfilm agenda.

For librarians out there, this isn't an attack against you personally and you shouldn't take it as such. Because true librarians are meant to preserve knowledge and those who has so strongly pushed the microfilm switch weren't preserving anything except misinformation.

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LibraryThing member nmele

When he wrote this, Baker was passionately devoted to saving books and newspapers. His passion shows through, as does his meticulous research. Unless you are, like me, concerned about the loss of content through microfilming and digitalization, this book may seem tedious.

LibraryThing member frenchhorn88

Dry in the second half, but super interesting and informative about some curious and perhaps misguided trends in libraries during the 20th century. The author is super committed to the topic and preserving original items, which makes the read enjoyable.

LibraryThing member hardlyhardy

It's as if the National Park Service felled vast wild tracts of pointed firs and replaced them with plastic Christmas trees. — Nicholson Baker, “Double Fold”

Destroying something to protect it sounds like something out of “Catch-22.” Instead it's something out of the Library of Congress

and numerous other prestigious libraries across the United States. What they have destroyed, or allowed to be destroyed, are countless irreplaceable old books and newspapers and, along with them, a good portion of American history.

So argues Nicholson Baker in his persuasive 2001 book “Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper.”

Baker attacks the claim that because paper is fragile and deteriorates with time, old books and newspapers should be copied onto microfilm, preferably with government funding. Because copying usually means taking apart these books and newspapers, they are no longer fit to be returned to shelves. So they are discarded. But saving library space, not saving books and newspapers, or even the contents of those books and newspapers, has really been the main objective all along, he says.

To be sure, the purpose of most public libraries is to serve the public, and the public mostly wants to read today's books and today's newspapers, not books and newspapers from a hundred years ago. Libraries must regularly discard older books in order to make room for new ones. Baker argues, however, that major metropolitan libraries, university libraries and especially the Library of Congress should have different standards and different objectives. These are the libraries most used by historians, writers and researchers of all sorts, and these are the people most hurt by the actions of these libraries. (But in smaller towns all over the country, old newspaper stories remain the main source for researching local history.)

Isn't microfilm just as good? During my newspaper career I sometimes had to search for old newspaper stories on microfilm. Rolls of microfilm were certainly lighter and easier to handle than bound volumes of newspapers, and one could speed through the microfilm fairly quickly to find what one was looking for. The problem was being able to actually read what you found. Reproduction on microfilm can be iffy, especially around the edges. It is also in black and white, even though portions of the newspaper pages may have been printed in color. Baker shows examples of newspaper pages from a century ago that had beautiful color drawings and cartoons that appear drab on microfilm.

What's more, Baker says, paper doesn't actually deteriorate as quickly as librarians argued to justify their scheme. Many of us have some very old books in our attics that can still be read without fear they will fall apart in our hands. And old books in libraries don't get heavy use. Usually those historians and researchers are the only people who want to handle them.

Finally, the author says, microfilm has been found to not last as long as those supposedly fragile books and newspapers. There are newer technologies, but how do you make a good digital copy from a blurry, decaying strip of microfilm? You need the originals, and in most cases, these have been destroyed.

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LibraryThing member BibliophageOnCoffee

Although Baker makes some valid points, he totally lost me when he started portraying people who didn't share his view on paper hoarding as criminals and idiots. I'm also not buying his conspiracy theories. I think he went a little overboard and succeeded only in making himself look like a complete

loon.

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LibraryThing member tuckerresearch

Published in 2001, this is somewhat dated. It is Baker's paean to old paper newspapers and journals and his anathema against microfilm. Baker recounts the history of the twentieth century push for microfilming and underscores the actual truth: it wasn't about saving brittle paper or allowing more

access, it was about throwing things out to gain space. Baker does a good job on this history, a good job on undermining the notion that lots of old acidic paper is just seconds from turning into dust. He does a good job showing how people pushed microfilming for their own agendas (he doesn't call it the scourge of bureaucrats, but I will). He does a good job in bemoaning the downsides to microfilm: poor filming, poor image quality, the cost, its unwieldy nature to use.

Now, Baker wrote this when the internet was in its infancy and scanning technology too. We now have excellent book scanners that can scan without disbinding (literally buzz-sawing off the spines of books, etc.). We have the Internet Archive and Google Books doing a pretty good job at scanning and hosting old books, newspapers, journals, and files at repositories gratis to the user. (It all still costs money though.) Even outfits like Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.com have found ways to scan old microfilm and present it in a good way. Baker seemed just as put off by scanning as he did by microfilming. I wonder if he's tempered his views.

Such scanning allowed me to write a dissertation on place-names in the Spanish New World without going to Spain or any other country. It allows me to do research from my house a lot. Now, I still have to go see documents that aren't scanned, and, yes, it's always more awesome to hold the pages direct in my hand rather than on a screen. But access and quality has improved tremendously. As to microfilm, yes, it is a hassle and often unreadable. But, it has also given me access to things that may have disappeared years ago through age or carelessness or who knows. I have worked with a scanned collection of documents that were lent to a library to be filmed in the 1940s and taken back by the owner. They are now nowhere to be found, so at least we have a microfilm record of them.

Baker writes well, is very opinionated, but overall fair to his interlocutors. A few pictures. Extensive endnotes (in silly new fashion), but informative and interesting nevertheless. An extensive bibliography and index. Well worth the read if you can get it cheap. An update is in order, now two decades gone by.

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