Rating: 
Summary: a fiery gem from Baker
Review: I've loved all of Baker's books so far (from the wild and crazy Vox and Fermata to his more staid literary forays), so it says a lot to say that this is his best yet, or at least his most important. You don't have to be a librarian to understand the ridiculous argument about testing the durability of a book by folding and refolding a page until it breaks. For decades librarians and others working in librarys have used the most lame tests possible, all to justify tossing originals (books and newspapers) and replacing them with microfilm. I'm all for electronic material and microfilm which definitely speeds up research, but there are times when only a hard copy will do as anyone who does serious research can tell you. I can't tell you how often as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College (which has a great library) I would try to locate books by using the electronic catalog only to find that 90% of what I ultimately found helpful came from browsing directly in the stacks. It is impossible to find everything electronically due to scanning errors, typos, etc... as Baker makes clear. I can also tell you how frustrating my graduate years at Columbia University were -- yes the library was bigger but many books were missing. After reading Baker's tome, I know where they are!Baker's work is thoroughly researched, passionately argued, a joy to read and an important book for everyone who loves books to read. What has been happening with books is a crime. Baker backs up his words with action by taking major steps to buy collections and store them. As he points out, you can fit decades worth of bound newspapers in a small part of the Toys R Us aisle!
Rating: 
Summary: Newsprint crumbles
Review: It's a fact. Blaming librarians for the process of papermaking is disingenuous at best. One wonders if Baker resents the fact that librarians buy his books so that many people can read them without having to pay him a royalty.
Rating:
Summary: Early Entry For a Pulitzer
Review: Nicholson Baker's new book confronts an old foe in unexpected clothing. The enemy is that strange notion, first articulated by a forgotten Army spokesman during the Vietnam war, that we must "destroy a village in order to save it." This curious idea, according to Baker--and backed by hundreds of quotations and citations--has been the central intellectual justification behind one of the more Orwellian words of our time--"preservation." That word--"preservation"--would suggest to most of us, in the context of books, a method of keeping a book intact so that it may be enjoyed by future generations. Not so for the "preservationists" cited by Baker in "Double Fold." To them, the whole point of "preservation" is to save space, which to them means, alas (a most crocodile-teared alas), replacing a perfectly serviceable book or bound newspaper volume with a cheesy microfilmed substitute, which itself will inevitably disintegrate far more quickly than the allegedly endangered book. I own a used book shop filled with books that, according to the scaremongers in the "preservation" field, should have decayed long ago, but in fact are as readable as they were 50 to 100 years ago. We have bound volumes of the New York Times from 1915 that any well-trained child could thumb through for hours without damaging, yet hundreds of librarians over the past 5 or 6 decades have seemed to think that these perfectly lovely artifacts--living history--are inferior to little spools of poorly focused microfilm which need an expensive apparatus to use. History will not judge these librarians and mad scientist-technicians kindly, and Nicholson Baker is a well-qualified judge to sit at their trial. This book should be read, pondered, and discussed by everyone who cares about the future of books, and indeed about the future of memory.
Rating: 
Summary: Passionate, eye-opening, screed
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: this MLS candidate applauds Baker, others.
Review: Oh, where to begin...I loved this book. It filled me with righteous anger and indignation, but that's a good thing. I was not impressed by any of the rebuttals I have read thusfar, neither here on Amazon.com nor the on-line article quoted by another reviewer here. Some of the deunciations are so shrill I wondered aloud if the people who wrote them actually READ the book. Or if they did read it, they certainly didn't read it carefully enough. Barbara Quint writes, in the off-Amazon/on-article referenced by another reviewer: "Content matters, not format." Oh? Anyone for a copy of the New Testament on toilet paper then? Ms. Quint then amends that assertion with the caveat: "Format only matters when it affects the endurance and transmission of content." Ah, but that precisely is Mr. Baker's point. These anti-bound-paper-volume "techno{quick}fixes" DO, repeat DO affect 'transmission of content', microfilm as well as digitization. That Ms. Quint acknowledges as much but again repeats, religious like, her mantra "Content matters, not format. Format only matters when it affects the endurance and transmission of content." (she writes it verbaitum x2) is more than a little eerie. No, I haven't earned my MLS yet; I hold an MA in German Lit, but it is sneering and elitist to assert no one has a right to comment on library practices that doesn't hold an MLS. Nonsense. (But better to listen to someone with an MLS than the increasingly ubiquitous "MS in INFORMATION SCIENCE", I might add). Space problems? Fine, lobby to build an annex. Rent warehouse space. Baker demonstrates over and over that the reason such a common-sense solution is so often discounted outright by library administrators has nothing to do with real cost-benefits (the techno-fixes are themselves outrageously expensive--ah, but there's always the seductive siren call of "grant money", isn't there? Always that technological faustian pact...) or reason or logic but IDEOLOGY, pure and simple. A particularly AMERICAN (Modernist) Ideology of "Better living through Technology" that was at its height from the end of WW2 up to the "rational planning" of the Vietnam War a la MacNamara and other US "Best and Brightest". Baker focuses on the effect of this quirky American Ideology upon the library world. The results are not pretty. I always, in my youth, enjoyed looking through "bound periodicals", such as old editions of LIFE and TIME from the 1940s and 1950s. But before reading DOUBLE FOLD, I will confess ignorance that I never realized that BOUND PERIODICALS of NEWSPAPERS actually EXISTED before! I have only ever dealt with microfilm in my experience using Public and University Libraries (point of reference: I was born in 1971). I am mute with rage at the loss of these primary sources. I applaud Baker's one-man effort to save as much as he could of the British Library's abandoned collection out of his own personal funds. These collective turn of events seem like a gigantic step BACKWARD for librarianship, though...that an individual like Baker has to step forward and create a private collection a-la Ben Franklin and the Founding Fathers, because Public Libraries simply can't be trusted anymore to properly care for these materials!! Ok, that's an exaggeration (knock on wood), but the thought does come disturbingly to mind upon finishing Baker's book. The secrecy, the lack of patron input, the sheer arrogance with which these techno-fixes are implemented, is probably what galls me the most. Regarding a debate over digitalization, Baker notes in the case of one particular academic Library that, in the opinion of the Powers-that-Be: "Although resistence is expected, especially from the humanities faculty...most [library managers] were in agreement that the [project] should go forward." If our libraries (Academic and Public) are truly public institutions, shouldn't the Public have some say in this? Apparently not, according to some of the LOC's past leadership!! ...What utter contempt this shows for democracy, I say. Bravo for the "resisting" humanities faculty, I say. One thing I found remarkable is how so many of these key players Baker singles out for indictment were from Natural Sciences/Engineering backgrounds, etc. Not a one of them true humanist scholars or people with traditional librarianship backgrounds. It's something to keep in mind. If you liked this book, let me toss out some more authors' names to look out for: Clifford Stoll, Kirkpatrick Sale, Theodore Roszack, and in particular the following librarian authors: Michael Gorman, Walt Crawford, Sanford Berman, and Earl Lee. I plan to start my MLS this Fall of 2001. I am a humanist scholar already (MA, German Lit.). I can see that I go there not only to learn but also to FIGHT. Bravo, Nicholson Baker! And thank you for re-kindling my firey enthusiasm to leave corporate America once and for all and join the library profession.
Rating: 
Summary: Idea Evolution - Life, Death and Rebirth
Review: On the back cover of Double Fold, the blurb editor concludes the promotion of the book by drawing a comparison between Nicholson Baker's book and Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Certainly the reader may recognize the industrial knives, waste, elite special interest coteries, and shoddy end products, with an allowance of imagination.
This comparison is interesting, less in terms of an activist-novel success, but in its failure; Sinclair intended to use the meatpacking industry as a grotesque example of a larger, inherently-flawed capitalist system. Much to his chagrin, the communist ideology failed to incite American readership. His powerful descriptions in the early chapters of the intolerably unsanitary meat products caused such an outcry that those early chapters became the entire work, at least in the minds of the public. This led to reform, but not to the extent that Sinclair wanted; his microcosm had become the message. I would postulate that the exact opposite occurs with this reception. Baker's calls for the preservation of original documents reflect an intense interest in a part of the whole. This means that his tactics are the reverse of Sinclair's - these people are wasting millions of your tax dollars destroying books, he informs us, just as they wasted billions of tax dollars on failed Defense and industrial programs in other government spheres. For Baker, the goal is to prove the microcosm on the evidence of the macrocosm. Ironically, this "greater whole" distracts from library preservation issue. Patrons may lament the loss of newspapers from centuries ago as a sad failure to protect national heritage, and may become angry at Baker's tales of library administrators who pulp that heritage indiscriminately. But the majority of the public will feel this pinch as tax-payers first and layperson-scholars second, if at all. Sinclair hit the stomach when he wanted to strike the mind; Baker aims for the mind, and strikes the wallet. Perhaps it would be helpful to examine the four recommendations Baker offers in conclusion, to determine if he has made adequate arguments for each, and if any change within or without library administrative circles might be forthcoming. 1. Baker believes the public should be informed when something will be removed from the library. Bibliophiles like Baker and the others may not always have been in the loop, but on most occasions found out what was about to become permanently unavailable upon making inquiries. Libraries might resist complete notification in a number of ways, but the greatest barrier is the edict against the ownership transfer to private citizens. If the public were to become incensed enough at the sale of public property to private companies at criminally deflated prices, libraries might be compelled to change the practice. Even so, it is doubtful that non-profits will have the public backing or the resources to compete in future auctions. 2. The idea of a massive building project in a climate of shrinking library budgets makes his plea for a mass depository extremely unlikely. This expensive retirement community for old documents would likely anger taxpayers more than the destruction enrages conservators, particularly if the originals continue to decay in windowless tombs without a concrete function or benefit for non-scholars. 3. Libraries of the nation, cease what you have been doing for decades, and follow Boston's example. In effect, stop discarding the newspapers that have been filmed or scanned, despite the fact the space issue as the primary reason why so much money has been spent on the reproductions. His reasoning, perhaps, is just that - assumedly, the libraries wouldn't bother to produce negative space gain, or waste money on the new technologies. Baker knows better. No agency chooses the less technical option, or dares to spend less federal grant money. Again, it proves the absurdity of the greater system of allocation, and detracts from the ever-more-insignificant library issue. 4. "The National Endowment for the Humanities should either abolish the U.S. Newspaper Program and the Brittle Books Program entirely, or require as a condition of funding that (1) all microfilming and digital scanning be non-destructive and (2) all originals be saved afterwards." Revolutionary pronouncements using terms like "abolish" and "require as a condition of funding" make this seem as if his recommendations are getting less sane. But according to Baker's earlier reporting, many of the preservationists, (whom he separates from conservationists) even those who believe in the mission of filming material to save it, would like to see alternatives to the disbinding. Most are equally reluctant to condemn the practice of disbinding, since the speed of the reproduction process clearly holds a higher priority. Change has already arrived to some extent in the form of new scanning machines with book-friendly cradles, but as Baker points out, the practice of mashing pages on flat glass (necessitating disbinding) continues. Saving the originals, as has already been established above, clearly will not appeal to libraries whose secret project goals include space gain through removal. If the tone has been overly critical of Baker thus far, it has little to with the soundness of his convictions. One of his more powerful and subtle musings repackages G. Thomas Tanselle's rejection of any possible judgment on the artifactual, or intrinsic value of any book. The quality of the book's upkeep, Tanselle and Baker argue, should not depend upon the publisher's pricelist, or by extension, the fads of the public. And this is precisely where Baker's vision becomes less sound. All books are artifacts of equal value? He speaks for the aging, but this is because these are the most obviously threatened. Given time, and again, copious amounts of imagination, we might imagine that all of these equal artifacts of words need to be saved from oblivion, led two by two (one original, one back-up copy) into a metaphorical ark for all our sakes. This removes the burden of survival from the book and the merit of its ideas, and weakens the reader's sense of true idea evolution, which requires life, death, and rebirth as much as any ecosystem.
Rating: 
Summary: A poison pen on acid-free paper
Review: This book is the latest salvo in an age-old war between library administrators and library users, managers versus scholars, bean counters versus book lovers. Is a book an artifact or an information delivery system? As an artifact, what should be done to preserve it? As an information delivery system, what is gained or lost when the information migrates between platforms? This is not Nicholson Baker at his finest. This work is an exposé written by a zealot from one of the opposing camps. The usual music of Baker's writing is shrill and off-key. There are still the occasional impressively gymnastic turns of phrase and perfectly placed make-words. But Baker (self-admittedly) has an axe to grind and the sound of the grindstone predominates. The author bewails the federally-funded "preservation" efforts of the past decades which have unbound, microfilmed, and discarded as pulp or curios hundreds of thousands of books and periodicals. Original paper copies have been causalities of an ongoing "war against paper" and their microfilm (and now digital) copies leave much to be desired. Baker savages the culprits involved and few in the highest circles of library administration over the last 50 years come away with reputations unscathed. Apparently, the author sees a Cold War spook behind every book stack. According to Baker, its seems almost the entire profession of American librarians was working for the Military-Industrial complex as sponsored by the CIA in the 1950s and '60s. And you know what that means...(no, I don't know either, and Baker never makes it clear why the connection would be of interest to his arguments). I use microfilm copies regularly and I admit that I hate them. That they are not as ideal to work with as the originals. That microfilm can be poorly made, riddled with errors, and subject to deterioration goes without argument. But Baker comes from that rarified atmosphere of the academic researcher who has the luxury of travel access to the great research libraries around the world. Those of us who don't exist in that space are perhaps more grateful for access to the bad copies rather than wishing for the originals. He makes an interesting analogy between the "diamonds" of the originals and the "cubic zirconium" of the copies. Obviously, opinions on the object's sparkle will differ between jewelers and laymen. Did the originals have to be destroyed to make the copies? Baker argues persuasively that this was a false economy foisted on a complacent library-using public by disingenuous administrators. Was a significant part of our nation's "intellectual heritage" lost in the process? Baker is less persuasive on this question. Any loss of original materials regardless of what they contain is presented as an unexplored tragedy throughout the book. The loss of color illustrations from the days of Yellow Journalism, cartoons, marginalia in books, etc. are obvious on microfilm copies. Is the world really a poorer place for not having their originals? I wish the author had devoted more attention to this point because I came away from the book with the Scottish legal verdict "Not Proven" uppermost in my mind. You have to admire the author for putting his own money where his mouth is and rescuing original American newspaper runs from the British Library. His argument that a change in format of information does not require the destruction of the old format is an excellent one. If you are a fan of Nicholson Baker's writing, this volume will probably disappoint you. It reads like the commercial memoir of a war correspondent rather than the fine craftsmanship you'd expect from him.
Rating:
Summary: A Sucker Born Every Minute
Review: This book reminds me there's a sucker born every minute--and we keep sending 'em to Congress. It also reminds me that a fool and his money are soon parted--the politicians are the fools, but unfortunately it's our money they seem so content to part with. Baker may have a tough time selling this book to anyone other than Baker-freaks (like me) and librarians. After all--it's "just library books" he's talking about, not telephone sex, escalators, or the ability to suspend time. But this is a must read. It's an impressively scholarly effort that reads like a novel and gets your blood pumping. You'll never look at your local librarian the same.
Rating:
Summary: Destroying history in the name of progress
Review: This book struck home with me but first, I must confess, I came to this book as a convert of sorts. I have always loved reading old magazines, newspapers and other pieces of our cultural history - and part of that pleasure comes from reading more than just the articles. The advertisements and other "incidental" material is a key part of understanding the total history and feel of a period in history - to my mind.
That's why Baker's book, focusing on the destruction of magazines and newspapers (which are partially saved on microfilm) in the name of "progess" was so painful (but enlightening) to read. The thought of all those magazines, all those newspapers, being torn apart and only partially saved , seemed like a great loss to me. This book deserves to be read and discussed - but more importantly, more people need to become involved in trying to save the actual existing newspapers and magazines - in their original forms - before they are lost forever.
Rating:
Summary: A Librarian Agrees...
Review: 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.
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