Double fold : libraries and the assault on paper Nicholson Baker

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baker, Nicholson

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Libraries--United States--Special collections--Newspapers.

Libraries.

Newspaper and periodical libraries--United States.

Newspaper and periodical libraries.

Newspapers--Conservation and restoration.

Newspapers.

Paper--Preservation--United States.

Paper.

Physical Description:

xii, 370 p., [4] p. of plates : col. ill. ; 24 cm.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Random House, 2001.

Summary:

"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."--BOOK JACKET.

Contents:

Overseas disposal

Original keepsakes

Destroying to preserve

It can be brutal

The Ace comb effect

Virgin mummies

Already worthless

A chance to begin again

Dingy, dreary, dog-eared, and dead

The preservation microfilming office

Thugs and pansies

Really wicked stuff

Getting the champagne out of the bottle

Bursting at the seams

The road to Avernus

It's not working out

Double fold

A new test

Great magnitude

Special offer

3.3 million books, 358 million dollars

Six thousand bodies a day

Burning up

Going, going, gone

Absolute nonsense

Drumbeat

Unparalleled crisis

Microfix

Slash and burn

A swifter conflagration

Crunch

A figure we did not collect

Leaf masters

Turn the pages once

Suibtermanean convumision

Honest disagreement

We just kind of keep track

In good faith.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [335]-353) and index.

National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, 2001.

Other Format:

Online version: Baker, Nicholson. Double fold.

ISBN:

0375504443 (alk. paper)

9780375504440 (alk. paper)

OCLC:

44732234

Online:

Book review (H-Net)

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description