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Nicholson Baker Fan Page
Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper (2001)
This is a remarkably readable book, even for those who have no real
interest in the subject matter. You will be surprised, enlightened, and
probably disgusted,
Opening Paragraph:
In 1993, I decided to write some essays on trifling topics -- movie
projectors, fingernail clippers, punctuation, and the history of the word
"lumber." Deborah Garrison, then an editor at The New Yorker,
called to ask if I wanted to review a soon-to-be published history of the
world. Perhaps I should have written the review; instead, I suggested a
brief, cheerful piece about the appeal of card catalogs. I began talking
to librarians around the country, and I found out that card catalogs were
being thrown out everywhere. I grew less cheerful, and the essay grew
longer.
Book Jacket Copy:
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 of 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 is inestimable.
In this passionately argued book, bestselling writer Nicholson Baker,
author of The Mezzanine, Vox, and The Everlasting Story of
Nory, 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. Double Fold, the author's first full-length nonfiction in a
decade, is a timely book on a subject of great intellectual and historical
importance, a fascinating exposé written in the intense, brilliantly worded
narrative style that Nicholson Baker fans have come to expect.
Other:
This title is also available as an
e-book.
(Does anyone see the irony in this?)
Links:
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