Baker
December 30th, 2001Nicholson Baker is after us again.
His new book, Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, attacks such institutions as British Library for failing to preserve their collections. “Failing to preserve” is probably to light a phrase; he accuses libraries and librarians of destroying the collections that they have been charged to protect.
I have not read all of Double Fold yet. Too far behind on my reading. I did, however, read his July 2000 New Yorker prelude, “Deadline: A Desperate Plea to Stop the Trashing of America’s Historic Newspapers,” and some of his earlier articles on the same topic. He tells a very compelling story.
In attempt to save newspaper collections abandoned by libraries, Baker has used money set aside for his own retirement to set up a nonprofit organization called the American Newspaper Repository, a collection of some 7,000 bound volumes of original American newspapers. The collection is open to researchers, just make an appointment.
Goodies:
The Great Book Massacre, a book review by Robert Darnton from
The New York Review of Books.
The New York Times’s David
Gates gives us his review, Paper Chase.