Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper [Paperback]

Nicholson Baker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 9, 2002

The ostensible purpose of a library is to preserve the printed word. But for fifty years our country’s libraries–including the Library of Congress–have been doing just the opposite, destroying hundreds of thousands of historic newspapers and replacing them with microfilm copies that are difficult to read, lack all the color and quality of the original paper and illustrations, and deteriorate with age.

With meticulous detective work and Baker’s well-known explanatory power, Double Fold reveals a secret history of microfilm lobbyists, former CIA agents, and warehouses where priceless archives are destroyed with a machine called a guillotine. Baker argues passionately for preservation, even cashing in his own retirement account to save one important archive–all twenty tons of it. Written the brilliant narrative style that Nicholson Baker fans have come to expect, Double Fold is a persuasive and often devastating book that may turn out to be The Jungle of the American library system.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

All writers of course love the printed word, but few are those willing to start foundations in order to preserve it. Not only has noted novelist Baker (The Mezzanine; Vox; etc.) done so, he's also written a startling expos‚ of an ugly conspiracy perpetuated by the very people entrusted to preserve our history librarians. Baker started the American Newspaper Repository in 1999, when he discovered that the only existing copies of several major U.S. newspapers were going to be auctioned off by the British Library. Not only were U.S. libraries not interested, it turned out that they'd tossed their own copies years before. Why? Baker uncovered an Orwellian universe in our midst in which preservation equals destruction, and millions of tax dollars have funded and continue to fund the destruction of irreplaceable books, newspapers and other print media. The instruments of that destruction microfilm, microfiche, image readers and toxic chemicals are less to blame than the cadre of former CIA and military operatives at the Library of Congress in the 1950s who refused to acknowledge that those technologies were, in fact, inferior to preserving and storing the originals. They were more concerned with ways to (in the words of one) "extract profit and usefulness from" old books while at the same time "prevent [them] from clogging the channels of the present." Baker details these events in one horrifying chapter after another, and he doesn't mince words. One can only gasp in outraged disbelief as he describes the men and women who, while supposedly serving as responsible custodians of our history, have chosen instead to decimate it. (on-sale Apr. 10) Forecast: The genesis of this book, an article in the New Yorker, generated quite a fuss, and this book is bound to receive attention in the print media. The subject and the passion with which the case is made guarantee healthy sales.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Pulling no punches, novelist Baker (Vox) is a romantic, passionate troublemaker who questions the smug assumptions of library professionals and weeps at the potential loss of an extensive, pristine run of Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. For him, the wholesale destruction of books and newspapers to the twin gods of microfilming and digitization is an issue of administrators seeking storage space not of preserving a heritage. He contends that the alarmist slogans "brittle books" and "slow fires" are intended to obscure the reality and the destruction. Throughout his book, Baker hammers away at the Orwellian notion that we must destroy books and newspapers in order, supposedly, to save them. Particularly singled out for opprobrium are University Microfilms Inc. and the Library of Congress. This extremely well-written book is not a paranoid rant. Just this past October, Werner Gundersheimer, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, said at LC's "Preserve and Protect" symposium that, amid all the smoke and fury, Baker was essentially pleading for "a last copy effort of some kind." Double Fold is the narrative of a heroic struggle: Picture Baker as "Offisa Pup" defending "Krazy Kat," of the printed word, against the villainous "Ignatz Mouse" of the library establishment all in glorious, vivid color on brittle (but unbowed) newsprint. Highly recommended for all libraries.
- Barry Chad, Carnegie Lib. of Pittsburgh
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (April 9, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375726217
• ISBN-13: 978-0375726217
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #286,945 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I've written thirteen books, plus an art book that I published with my wife, Margaret Brentano. The most recent one is a comic sex novel called House of Holes, which came out in August 2011. Before that, in 2009, there was The Anthologist, about a poet trying to write an introduction to an anthology of rhyming verse, and before that was Human Smoke, a book of nonfiction about the beginning of World War II. My first novel, The Mezzanine, about a man riding an escalator at the end of his lunch hour, came out in 1988. I'm a pacifist. Occasionally I write for magazines. I grew up in Rochester, New York and went to Haverford College, where I majored in English. I live in Maine with my family.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Important but very one-sided, May 4, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper (Hardcover)

Baker raises some extremely interesting points in regards to libraries and the disposal of books and newspapers. This is an important and necessary read for anyone in the field of librarianship. I do think that there are some problems with this book however. Baker clearly began this book with an agenda--an admirable one in my view--but one that has prevented him from accurately portraying the story. He repeatedly refuses to acknowledge the very real and very pressing space problems that every library in America is now facing. Space is at a premium and libraries cannot continue unabated growth. Baker argues that it is cheaper to build storage facilities than to microfilm books and newspapers. Perhaps, but it is immeasurably cheaper to purchase a newspaper on microfilm than to build and maintain storage that is deperately needed for many other resources. Further, microforming and digitaization provide greater access to resources. I agree that discarding the original of microformed or digitized texts is bordering on criminal and idiotic, but libraries have realistically been left with no option. Money is scare and money is needed to hold on to thousands and thousands of volumes.

Baker delights in depicting librarians as nefarious ogres who delight in destroying books and newspapers in favor of microforms and digitization. This is an unfair and inaccurate depiction. Most librarians regret the destruction of books--for many, including myself, it can be a painful decision to discard a book--but unless governments and universities are willing to spend the money to store these items and maintain that storage area, there really is no practical alternative. Every librarian I know would prefer to have a hard copy of every book and newspaper they use, but this just is not possible. Baker's eloquent diatribe needs to be directed at governing bodies not at librarians. I think he will find that most librarians side with him in theory, but decades of practice and chronic underfunding demand librarians adopt a realistic, if depressing, approach. If he and his readers truly want to make a change and contribute to the role of libraries as preservers of paper, they would do well to pressure their local government to adeqately fund libraries. Until the funding and societal value of libraries increase, librarians will be forced to continue making heartbreaking choices as a result of limited financial resources.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Passionate, eye-opening, screed, July 12, 2002

By 

Richard R. Horton (Webster Groves, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper (Paperback)

Nicholson Baker's _Double Fold_ is an extended screed on the destruction of old books and newspapers by research libraries, and their inadequate replacement by microfilm and microfiche and digital copies. The book is not temperate in tone at all, which at times is a disadvantage. Baker at times advances his arguments unfairly. (For instance he complains in one case that a chemical used in a deacidification experiment was also used in bombs. So what? There are a number of other example of slippery rhetoric on his part.) Still, he makes his main points very well, and the story he has to tell is rather distressing.

Baker's interest in this subject was piqued when he learned that the British Library was selling off its extensive collection of old American newspapers. He found that for many newspapers no copies may exist but on microfilm, or at any rate that physical copies are harder and harder to find. The primary justification for this was that the papers, especially those printed since about 1870, were doomed to decay into unreadability, because of the low-quality, high-acid, wood pulp paper on which they are printed. (The secondary justification, somewhat more sensible perhaps, was simply a need for more space.) Baker found in particular that American libraries rarely have extensive runs of old papers anymore, opting instead for subscribing to microfilmed copies. Baker makes a good point that microfilm is simply not a good reproduction of the papers, particularly the color illustrations. He makes even better points that the process of reduction to microfilm has been rife with errors: skipped pages, pages photographed so poorly that they cannot be read, many missing issues. Furthermore, the tendency is for only one edition to be microfilmed and then shared among libraries, leading to what he calls the "Ace Comb Effect". If you have only one comb, copied many times, you will be missing the same teeth on each copy. If you have several combs, you may be missing teeth on each copy, but between them all, you will probably have all the teeth. Moreover, in the case of newspapers, there were multiple editions printed each day, sometimes quite radically different, particularly those published as out-of-town editions.

Baker further documents that a similar process is going on with old books. Book paper is generally higher quality than newsprint, so there is perhaps less of an impetus for conversion to microfilm, but the storage pressures are similar, and there is still a scare industry suggesting that old books are "crumbling to dust". And the same problems exist with microfilm, including besides those mentioned above the unergonomic quality of the reading process, the likelihood that microfilm itself will be as temporary if not more so than paper, and the generally destructive nature of the microfilming process.

The book points out that the research documenting the decay of old books and newspapers has been very poorly conducted. In fact, old paper isn't "crumbling to dust", and it is much less likely even to be approaching unreadability than has been reported. Some of the scare tactics Baker documents being used by the pro-Microfilm forces are disgusting.

It's an interesting, passionately argued, book. If at times I feel the passion and sarcasm of Baker's presentation undermines his purpose, for the most part, as far as I can evaluate, his points are well made. Microfilm is basically a disaster, at best a short term supplement to physical copies. Digitization is better by far, but should not be done destructively, and should, again, be a supplement and not a replacement for physical copies. Certainly this book is an eye-opening report.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Librarian Agrees..., May 6, 2001

By 

Gene Alloway (Ann Arbor, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper (Hardcover)

This work is not news reporting. This is one intelligent and passionate person's account of his suprise, shock, and disgust at the manner in which historically important documents of popular American history have been mismanaged over time. Decisions on the destruction of newspapers (and more recently of older books and journals, as Nicholson points out) were made on broad statements of supposed fact, rather than a professional study of the material under question. He maintains librarians could have and can maintain their collections better. As a librarian, I know this to be true, and I agree with Mr. Baker.

This is not a perfect book. Nicholson Baker is aggressive and engages in hyperbole. He can be one-sided. However, he does not hate libraries, or librarians, but he has a major bone to pick. His suggestions of consiracy are a bit stretched, but his evidence that similar poor solutions were widespread and fed one on another is accurate. His focus on newspapers may make them sound more imporant to historical research then perhaps is true, but in some branches of study access to the complete sets of originals is indeed crucial. And he is right in most instances as to the failure of the system, even if he does not show constraints libraries are under. I, however, personally believe the book would have been less strong had he done so.

Baker advocates we keep as much as we can - far more than we do now. However, every library cannot keep all it has and will receive. Deterioration of material does happen, material is stolen or damaged, and more money for a new library storage facility is difficult if not impossible to secure in these times. He points out that, even with current budgets, libraries have not done enough - that they have not kept even one copy of many important historical materials because of short sighted, ill-advised decisions - and he is right, and his evidence is damning. Library and historical associations have frequently supported the idea that availability of the original artifact in scholarly research is more important than ever, yet Baker shows evidence time and again where only the content - often incompletely and incoherently copied - was judged useful. Cooperative storage solutions, as at Duke University, and better efforts at balancing preservation of the original and long term, widespread access to content, as at the University of Virginia, need to be pursued.

Baker may have made some librarians angry, but I believe he has also cut a path to finding more creative solutions to a 50 year old problem, whose repercussions last much longer.