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...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
Vintage Books,
[2002]
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| Summary: | 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. Double Fold is an intense, brilliantly worded narrative that is sure to provoke discussion and controversy. |
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| Physical Description: | xii, 370 pages, 4 unnumbered pages of color plates : illustrations ; 20 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 0375726217 9780375726217 |