Rating: 
Summary: A Convincing Rant
Review: I first became aware of Nicholson Baker as preservation activist a few years ago when he published an article in "The New Yorker" on the valuable information that was being lost as old, hard-copy card catalogues were being replaced by lifeless, computerized search engines. I'm a big far of the lifeless, computerized search engine, so I am inclined to regard Baker as a well-meaning polemicist. "Double Fold," however, makes a compelling case that has left me convinced. Baker is now arguing that a vast treasure trove of cultural information is being lost as libraries destroy old newspapers in the process of "preserving" then by placing them on microfilm. Not only, he suggests, is information contained in the newspapers-as-physical-object being lost, but he suggests that microform preservation is dubious and may not last as long as the original newspapers would have. He dashes pretty convincingly all the arguments in favor of this method of preservation (space, longevity, etc.), and even suggests that the trend toward microfilm is a relic of cold war ideology that now trudges along for its own sake rather than because it is the best way keep information around forever. Anyone who has read Baker's fiction knows what a wonderful writer he is, and this book is engaging, engrossing, at times hillarious, and at times poweful enough to make the reader furious. "Double Fold" is surely for bibliophiles only, but what it contains is sure to make them hopping mad.
Rating: 
Summary: Is Laura Bush listening?
Review: I have to admit that I am an intellectual supporter of Baker since his attempt a few years back to save the nation's card catalogues. In "Double Fold," Baker's basic message is the same -- once something is gone, it's gone. This time, however, the situation is far more dire. First we lost card catalogues, which EVERYONE preferred to the electronic substitute because card catalogues allowed for browsing. (You can still browse through the cards in the San Francisco library; they were made into wallpaper.) Now Baker wants us to be aware of the money-driven international destruction of one-of-a-kind newspaper runs, journals, magazines and books. Yes, the exposee gets fairly dry (no pun intended)as Baker traces the swirl of scientific debate surrounding the acidity and durability of paper and microfilm, and he dwells at length on the bureacratic black hole which ensnares any lucid thinking in the "life or death" decisions that are made regarding archival material.
For the interested reader who sticks with it, however, this report is studded with gems. The highly questionable use of the highly combustible chemical agent DEZ? The use of mummies? The mass destruction of all bound books as proposed by those opting for a digital warehouse? Sounds like bad science fiction, but it's all true! Ultimately, Baker does reveal that the fate of our archival material hinges on the availability of money and, in a particularly perverse equation, the more money that has been made available the greater the loss of material. Each year, a prescribed percentage of library material will be pronounced "brittle" and torn apart for filming in a dubious "preservation" process made possible by bountiful grants. Preservation by way of microfilm is great for the microfilm industry, a boost for the library's contemporary image, and a significant loss to the public and the research community. Manipulating a spool of microfilm and making printouts is a tedious and potentially expensive enterprise with no guarantees regarding legibility. Baker's passionate belief is that a spool of microfilm is in no way equivalent to the original. I applaud Baker's effort to unearth and reveal the truth buried under years of lies and propaganda. Based on his research, Baker is right to cry out "Hey, everybody. Our libraries are destroying historical material unnecessarily and I don't like it!" For anyone who cherishes the printed word, this is an alarming and necessary wake-up call.
Rating:
Summary: Is Laura Bush listening?
Review: I have to admit that I am an intellectual supporter of Baker since his attempt a few years back to save the nation's card catalogues. In "Double Fold," Baker's basic message is the same -- once something is gone, it's gone. This time, however, the situation is far more dire. First we lost card catalogues, which EVERYONE preferred to the electronic substitute because card catalogues allowed for browsing. (You can still browse through the cards in the San Francisco library; they were made into wallpaper.) Now Baker wants us to be aware of the money-driven international destruction of one-of-a-kind newspaper runs, journals, magazines and books. Yes, the exposee gets fairly dry (no pun intended)as Baker traces the swirl of scientific debate surrounding the acidity and durability of paper and microfilm, and he dwells at length on the bureacratic black hole which ensnares any lucid thinking in the "life or death" decisions that are made regarding archival material.
For the interested reader who sticks with it, however, this report is studded with gems. The highly questionable use of the highly combustible chemical agent DEZ? The use of mummies? The mass destruction of all bound books as proposed by those opting for a digital warehouse? Sounds like bad science fiction, but it's all true! Ultimately, Baker does reveal that the fate of our archival material hinges on the availability of money and, in a particularly perverse equation, the more money that has been made available the greater the loss of material. Each year, a prescribed percentage of library material will be pronounced "brittle" and torn apart for filming in a dubious "preservation" process made possible by bountiful grants. Preservation by way of microfilm is great for the microfilm industry, a boost for the library's contemporary image, and a significant loss to the public and the research community. Manipulating a spool of microfilm and making printouts is a tedious and potentially expensive enterprise with no guarantees regarding legibility. Baker's passionate belief is that a spool of microfilm is in no way equivalent to the original. I applaud Baker's effort to unearth and reveal the truth buried under years of lies and propaganda. Based on his research, Baker is right to cry out "Hey, everybody. Our libraries are destroying historical material unnecessarily and I don't like it!" For anyone who cherishes the printed word, this is an alarming and necessary wake-up call.
Rating: 
Summary: You Have One VERY Annoyed Librarian Here.
Review: I read Nicholson Baker's article in the New Yorker long before Double Fold. Most of us became librarians because we LOVE books. We didn't enter it as a secret cabal to destroy them. Yes, it is sad to see these old things go up in flames. What's more important though? Being able to access the history of these items easily or allowing no one access, because they will crumble the moment they are touched. Double Fold is more spewing from Mr. Baker. His bleating over the catalogs was just silly. Our library buildings aren't made of rubber and cannot expand to hold everything. Especially at this time in our history, when more paper than ever is created. First, when Mr. Baker gets his Masters of Library Science, only then will he have just a little more credibilty. By the time he was done in Double Fold, I felt as though librarians were a cross between the Mafia and Genghis Khan's Golden Horde. Since, I have some Mongol ancestry, I guess I will just have to go out and sack an old library somewhere. I am 700 years out of practice to sack Bagdad or Krakow. I would be happy to have a public debate with Mr. Nicholson, anytime, anyplace. To quote Martin Sheen in Wed. nights West Wing episode, "Bring it on!"
Rating:
Summary: Book contains ideas that must be thought about.
Review: I started reading this book as part of the Librarian's Book Club and found that it is a book that contains many important points. The conversion of original documents to microfiche without keeping the source material may have been a grave error by libraries around the country. Librarians need to discuss the issues in this book so that they can better deal with issues of preservation.
Rating:
Summary: A recommendation from a skeptic
Review: I was afraid this book was going to be rather dry and brittle, being about old paper and all, but I gave it a chance because I like Nicholson Baker's writing so much, and know from experience he can write about anything--and does--and make it fascinating. But I defy you to read this book "just" for Baker's writing, as I did, and not get involved in this subject. I won't go on about it here--just to say that the previous reviewer from Washington D.C. misses the point when he accuses Baker of saying microfilm is a bad thing. That's simply not true--he says it's fine, anything that makes papers more accessible to more readers is fine--just don't destroy the originals! But the way Baker tells this story, from the early days of American newsprint (using cloth made from unwrapped Egyptian mummies!) to the quirky bow-tie wearing librarians in the Library of Congress--it's as unpredictable and intelligently told as his novels. Leave it to N. Baker to write about old newsprint and make it interesting! I really recommend this book--and I was a skeptic!
Rating:
Summary: This needed to be said.
Review: I work for an academic press that publishes a lot of library science journals, and I've edited countless articles written by university librarians. I've been shocked and disgusted by how many of them envision the libraries of the future as being nothing more than computer labs, with everything available digitally and absolutely no paper resources. What's more, many of them are very rigid in their beliefs and openly disapproving of anyone who questions them. Thus, I'm glad Nicholson Baker is there to champion the other side. Some say his book is a bit inaccurate and exaggerated, but I'm just glad there's finally a little bit of balance in this debate. Recommended!
Rating:
Summary: An enraging book
Review: I worked at the San Francisco Public Library for eight years (1985 to 1992), and I can cheerfully report that librarians are as subject to human frailties as the rest of us. Professional arrogance and jealous guarding of position at the expense of purpose are not universal, but nor are they unheard of. If librarians are any less susceptible, as a class, to the lemming enthusiasms that beset lesser mortals, no one told my colleagues about it. When I read this book, what outraged me was not that every library in the country didn't keep every copy of every newspaper it ever received. What outraged me was that virtually no library-not even the Library of Congress-kept complete runs of the most important newspapers of the 19th and 20th centuries. This seems to me an inexcusable refusal of a professional obligation. If the Library of Congress cannot or will not keep at least ONE intact set of these important primary records, it fails in the most basic task it has been set. If a master's degree in library science allows a person to feel otherwise, then possessing one should automatically disqualify people from being hired as librarians. Librarians are civil servants, a designation which implies some responsibility to the public and to posterity. To believe that what concerns us today, as a society, is what will concern societies of tomorrow-and that the librarian's job thus requires judicious winnowing of primary materials that "don't circulate"-is a bureaucratic vulgarism based on a fantastic failure of the imagination. As a lover of "artifacts," Nicholson Baker argues that the newspapers that were thrown out and replaced with the sporadic, distorted fossil record that is microfilm should have been saved; this seems to be what irritates librarians most about his book. However, he argues more persuasively that one complete run should have been saved somewhere, if only to await a technology that could reproduce their colors and images properly. It's hard to imagine anyone disagreeing with this. Unfortunately, a premature enthusiam for microfilming and discarding newspapers made this impossible. Is this book shrill and emotionally overwrought? If its claims are true, it has every right to be. Well then: were original newspapers destroyed after being microfilmed? Yes. Does the microfilm record contain considerable gaps? Yes. Does it preserve the outstanding graphic work of the important American artists and photographers who worked for the dailies in the early 20th century? No. Is it thus a usuable resource for students of printing, photography, graphic design, or cartoon art? No. Are some pages unreadable because the edges have been cut off by sloppy technicians? Yes. Did some microfilm deteriorate more rapidly, and with greater loss of legibility, than the original newspaper would have? Yes. Vartan Gregorian claimed that seventy percent of the books printed after 1850 would deteriorate so badly as to be unusable by the year 2000-is this figure correct? Not by any stretch of the imagination. None of this is simply my opinion, or Mr. Baker's. These are facts that can be verified by going into any library in America. The inference seems clear. At the SFPL, certain departments were famous for being thoroughly self-referential and hermetic; concerns about public service were not allowed to interfere with scheming, empire-building, and tireless jockeying for position. Even so, when Ken Dowlin took over the library, and we were all invited to hear his inaugural address, many librarians were visibly upset to hear him say that he wanted to get replace books with electronic files (although they seemed far more shocked by his admission that he kept a Bible by his bed). Despite these grumblings, Dowlin's regime sent to the landfill books of such staggering value that they could have provided at least a year's operating budget for one or two of the smaller branches (certain of which were only open one or two days a week due to financial constraints). All of this is a matter of public record; if the professionals to whom we've entrusted our libraries cannot see the wastefulness and illogic of their actions, I would suggest that their minds are clouded by considerations that are inimical to their responsibilities as public servants.
Rating:
Summary: An enraging book
Review: I worked at the San Francisco Public Library for eight years (1985 to 1992), and I can cheerfully report that librarians are as subject to human frailties as the rest of us. Professional arrogance and jealous guarding of position at the expense of purpose are not universal, but nor are they unheard of. If librarians are any less susceptible, as a class, to the lemming enthusiasms that beset lesser mortals, no one told my colleagues about it. When I read this book, what outraged me was not that every library in the country didn't keep every copy of every newspaper it ever received. What outraged me was that virtually no library-not even the Library of Congress-kept complete runs of the most important newspapers of the 19th and 20th centuries. This seems to me an inexcusable refusal of a professional obligation. If the Library of Congress cannot or will not keep at least ONE intact set of these important primary records, it fails in the most basic task it has been set. If a master's degree in library science allows a person to feel otherwise, then possessing one should automatically disqualify people from being hired as librarians. Librarians are civil servants, a designation which implies some responsibility to the public and to posterity. To believe that what concerns us today, as a society, is what will concern societies of tomorrow-and that the librarian's job thus requires judicious winnowing of primary materials that "don't circulate"-is a bureaucratic vulgarism based on a fantastic failure of the imagination. As a lover of "artifacts," Nicholson Baker argues that the newspapers that were thrown out and replaced with the sporadic, distorted fossil record that is microfilm should have been saved; this seems to be what irritates librarians most about his book. However, he argues more persuasively that one complete run should have been saved somewhere, if only to await a technology that could reproduce their colors and images properly. It's hard to imagine anyone disagreeing with this. Unfortunately, a premature enthusiam for microfilming and discarding newspapers made this impossible. Is this book shrill and emotionally overwrought? If its claims are true, it has every right to be. Well then: were original newspapers destroyed after being microfilmed? Yes. Does the microfilm record contain considerable gaps? Yes. Does it preserve the outstanding graphic work of the important American artists and photographers who worked for the dailies in the early 20th century? No. Is it thus a usuable resource for students of printing, photography, graphic design, or cartoon art? No. Are some pages unreadable because the edges have been cut off by sloppy technicians? Yes. Did some microfilm deteriorate more rapidly, and with greater loss of legibility, than the original newspaper would have? Yes. Vartan Gregorian claimed that seventy percent of the books printed after 1850 would deteriorate so badly as to be unusable by the year 2000-is this figure correct? Not by any stretch of the imagination. None of this is simply my opinion, or Mr. Baker's. These are facts that can be verified by going into any library in America. The inference seems clear. At the SFPL, certain departments were famous for being thoroughly self-referential and hermetic; concerns about public service were not allowed to interfere with scheming, empire-building, and tireless jockeying for position. Even so, when Ken Dowlin took over the library, and we were all invited to hear his inaugural address, many librarians were visibly upset to hear him say that he wanted to get replace books with electronic files (although they seemed far more shocked by his admission that he kept a Bible by his bed). Despite these grumblings, Dowlin's regime sent to the landfill books of such staggering value that they could have provided at least a year's operating budget for one or two of the smaller branches (certain of which were only open one or two days a week due to financial constraints). All of this is a matter of public record; if the professionals to whom we've entrusted our libraries cannot see the wastefulness and illogic of their actions, I would suggest that their minds are clouded by considerations that are inimical to their responsibilities as public servants.
Rating: 
Summary: An Ivory Tower Viewpoint
Review: I'm a public reference librarian with an MLIS, and I must say that Mr. Baker's book is definately written from an Ivory Tower viewpoint. If he had any idea of the wear and tear newspapers go through on a daily basis in a public library, and how often sections of newspapers are stolen (despite strict security procedures), I feel he would reverse his idealistic views. So many times, persons who are not employed on a day-to-day basis in a profession such as librarianship feel free to offer well-meaning, abstract suggestions that just don't pan out in reality. Mr. Baker is one of those persons. I find his paper newspaper "archive" to be a naive venture -- one fire, flood, or angry, ravaging patron and it's gone. It has no viable cataloging method. Finally, Mr. Baker himself seems a bit bizarre in his thinking and quite Old Pale Male School in his philosophy. He did write a previous book, after all, about a man who has the ability to freeze time and to disrobe unwilling, pretty women in his office. Mr. Baker doesn't even have an MLIS. THIS is the man we librarians (a mostly female profession) are supposed to turn to for leadership? No thanks.
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