Article:		Six Steps to LCC@Home
Subject:		Double Fold
Date:		2004-04-29 05:40:23
From:		Niel Bornstein
Nicholson Baker's book is a good read. In it, he critiques the modern library -- and specifically, the Library of Congress -- for losing its focus on preserving books and the knowledge they contain. Instead, they all too often make unreadable microfilm copies, destroying the originals in the process. The term "double fold" comes from the practice of seeing how many times a leaf from a book can be folded over itself before tearing off. He criticizes this standard as unrealistic, because paper remains pliable long after it fails the double fold test. Baker has made it his duty to preserve old newspapers that would otherwise be sold off to souvenir vendors or destroyed. Visit the American Newspaper Repository's website at http://home.gwi.net/~dnb/newsrep.html. And read the book; if you care about the printed word at all, it'll make your blood boil.

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• Double Fold
  2004-04-30 06:54:12 rawbrick [Reply]
  
  I'd suggest reading "Double Fold" more as a.. polemic. I've seen Baker speak at a few library-related events, and in person, he might be a little more fair-minded and understanding of the issues facing the modern library than he comes off in the book. I'm in no way defending past microfilming practices, but I do think that in this book, among other things, Baker insufficiently appreciates some of the essential working differences between, say, the special and circulating collections of a library.

  
  Got to give the guy credit for ponying up some of his money to preserve some of our own history though.