Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper"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 on 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 in inestimable." "In this book, writer Nicholson Baker 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."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
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acetate acid American Library Association Annual Report Archives Association of Research Barrow binding Brian Lang British Library brittle books Brittle Books Program called catalog CHAPTER Chicago collections Commission on Preservation Congress Information Bulletin Conservation copy cost Council on Library crumble Deacidification deterioration diethyl zinc disbinding disbound discard documents dollars edition film fold test going Haas Hayes History hundred Journal JSTOR Lesk librarians Library of Congress Library Resources library's Mass Deacidification material Mellon Foundation Michael Lesk Microcard Microform Review Microphotography Micropublishing million mummies Office original paper Papermaking Patricia Battin percent Peter Sparks preservation administrators Preservation and Access Preservation Microfilming Preservation Program printed problem published Research Libraries Robert says scanning Scholar scientists shelves Slow Fires space stacks storage survey Tanselle Technology things thousand told Tribune turning to dust University Verner Clapp Washington Welsh William writes wrote Yale York Public Library