- Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (April 9 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0375726217
- ISBN-13: 978-0375726217
- Product Dimensions: 2.1 x 1.3 x 0.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 318 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #358,857 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
All writers of course love the printed word, but few are those willing to start foundations in order to preserve it. Not only has noted novelist Baker (The Mezzanine; Vox; etc.) done so, he's also written a startling expos‚ of an ugly conspiracy perpetuated by the very people entrusted to preserve our history librarians. Baker started the American Newspaper Repository in 1999, when he discovered that the only existing copies of several major U.S. newspapers were going to be auctioned off by the British Library. Not only were U.S. libraries not interested, it turned out that they'd tossed their own copies years before. Why? Baker uncovered an Orwellian universe in our midst in which preservation equals destruction, and millions of tax dollars have funded and continue to fund the destruction of irreplaceable books, newspapers and other print media. The instruments of that destruction microfilm, microfiche, image readers and toxic chemicals are less to blame than the cadre of former CIA and military operatives at the Library of Congress in the 1950s who refused to acknowledge that those technologies were, in fact, inferior to preserving and storing the originals. They were more concerned with ways to (in the words of one) "extract profit and usefulness from" old books while at the same time "prevent [them] from clogging the channels of the present." Baker details these events in one horrifying chapter after another, and he doesn't mince words. One can only gasp in outraged disbelief as he describes the men and women who, while supposedly serving as responsible custodians of our history, have chosen instead to decimate it. (on-sale Apr. 10) Forecast: The genesis of this book, an article in the New Yorker, generated quite a fuss, and this book is bound to receive attention in the print media. The subject and the passion with which the case is made guarantee healthy sales.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.From Library Journal
Pulling no punches, novelist Baker (Vox) is a romantic, passionate troublemaker who questions the smug assumptions of library professionals and weeps at the potential loss of an extensive, pristine run of Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. For him, the wholesale destruction of books and newspapers to the twin gods of microfilming and digitization is an issue of administrators seeking storage space not of preserving a heritage. He contends that the alarmist slogans "brittle books" and "slow fires" are intended to obscure the reality and the destruction. Throughout his book, Baker hammers away at the Orwellian notion that we must destroy books and newspapers in order, supposedly, to save them. Particularly singled out for opprobrium are University Microfilms Inc. and the Library of Congress. This extremely well-written book is not a paranoid rant. Just this past October, Werner Gundersheimer, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, said at LC's "Preserve and Protect" symposium that, amid all the smoke and fury, Baker was essentially pleading for "a last copy effort of some kind." Double Fold is the narrative of a heroic struggle: Picture Baker as "Offisa Pup" defending "Krazy Kat," of the printed word, against the villainous "Ignatz Mouse" of the library establishment all in glorious, vivid color on brittle (but unbowed) newsprint. Highly recommended for all libraries.
- Barry Chad, Carnegie Lib. of Pittsburgh
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
- Barry Chad, Carnegie Lib. of Pittsburgh
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious and ridiculous,
By A Customer
This review is from: Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper (Paperback)
...to even think of blaming libraries. Maybe if high powered political figures on library boards across America didn't feel the need to make their served institutions "All Things to All People" and got back to core values, and if the American public could turn off American Idol and reality TV long enough to end the Reign of the Retard, there would be the support for libraries needed to house all the items ever published anywhere, and every Podunktown can have it's own Library of Congress. Guess you've truly made it when you've sold enough books you can bite a hand that feeds you, Mr. Baker.However that does not detract from the quality of his writing, stellar as usual.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Newsprint crumbles,
By A Customer
This review is from: Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper (Paperback)
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.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Half right,
By
This review is from: Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper (Paperback)
I actually work for one of the companies that Baker claims are destroying our paper heritage, and so I have some skin in this game. While he consistently ignores the issue of access to content, which digitization unquestionably improves (I'd love to be able to travel to anywhere in the world, to visit whatever library I needed to; if I can't, getting something online is my only viable option.) On the other hand, he does poke some reasonable holes in the library world. Read this (with a couple of grains of salt) if you're into historical or geneological research.
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