Back Talk — Double Fold or Double Talk
efore commenting on Nicholson
Baker’s new expose on the sins of librarians, I must first confess that I
was employed, until last month, by one of the evil university libraries
depicted in his book and I was recruited by the central dark-side protagonist
featured in Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, Random
House, 2001.
Baker’s book is a very personalized
account in which he is the hero, and most librarians are the villains. He suggests that we:
1. Simplified/lied about the wood
pulp deterioration hyperbole: We said
because the corners of a book or bound newspaper printed on acidic wood pulp
paper will break when folded back and forth, within a few years the whole
volume will crumble and become dust.
The rate of wood pulp paper deterioration is not linear, but is greatly
affected by actions under our control: the level and mode of use, temperature,
humidity, etc.
2. Disbound newspaper runs and
books prior to microfilming and then discarded the remains to speed the
microfilming process and to avoid gutter shadow. Ignored filming book cradles that have been around for
decades. Failed to reshelve the remains
or to find libraries who would put them on shelves for research use. In the process discarded thousands of rare
and valuable materials.
3. Participated in film and sell
schemes to pay for filming by selling off original newspaper runs to companies
specializing in reselling them a page or article at a time, and we replaced
them with incomplete and user unfriendly microfilms. These acts, in turn, facilitated the commercialization/privatization
of the library’s cultural/intellectual heritage preservation function.
4. Failed to comprehend that the
intellectual experience of working with the originals is different/superior to
working with reformatted reproductions.
5. Put the saving of storage costs
ahead of collection development and preservation functions. We fabricated statistics about the rate at
which library collections grow in order to make the need to microfilm even more
justifiable.
6. Broke moral, if not legal
agreements with donors by discarding the materials they gave or purchased for
our libraries.
7. Supported/acquiesced to NEH’s
fixation on filming in the name of preservation, instead of providing funds to
repair and improve environmental conditions.
8. Minimized/falsified statements
about the problems of microfilm: they fade; they make people motion sick when
using them; and various kinds of film produce gasses that corrode boxes and
cabinets, bubble/buckle/shrink/stick together, are easily scratched, and
develop redox blemishes and fungi.
9. Lied about microfilming making
money and conservation costing money, when the opposite is true. Microfilming is expensive in the long and
short terms if we take into account the value of lost access to information. Conservation, including the boxing of little
used materials, on the other hand, costs little.
10. Used resource sharing as a
guise to avoid collection development all in the name of preventing the need
for new shelving. The goal should be
providing content to users, not avoiding the cost of building library
buildings.
11. Held on to the double fold (or
three fold and tug) technique to determine if a volume should be filmed when
this technique has little to do with the reality of how bound volumes are
used. Volumes whose corners break off
can have their pages turned hundreds of times without ill consequence and
structurally unsound books can be boxed and used for long periods of time. Structurally unsound volumes that are used
intensively are a rarity and can be selectively replaced/preservation
photocopied. To treat everything as if
it will crumble tomorrow is dumb and expensive.
12. We did all of this to
communicate the “Slow Fires” message: Spend now on microfilming or loose the
content forever. If we didn’t
personally initiate any of these actions, we allowed ourselves to be herded to
one degree or another by those who did.
13. Promoted the idea that
digitized texts are more useful than the originals because they are fully
searchable and because they are more accessible — while ignoring the equally
important value of working with originals.
14. Supported digitization projects
when we know that the use of OCR (optical character recognition) software to
make these volumes fully searchable is a joke.
15. Promoted the scan from film
scam to justify the original filming and destruction that had already been
done. Since no one wants to scan from
film, the original destruction is discredited.
16. Failed to understand the
economic and intellectual value of doing nothing: Doing nothing costs little
(boxing) or nothing and doesn’t result in the destruction of books. Reformatting costs money and results in
their destruction. Books and newspapers
seemingly doomed to deterioration, don’t.
17. Failed to learn from our
mistakes: We destroyed texts in the
failed microcard experiment, we destroyed texts in the “Slow Fires” movement,
and now we are destroying texts in the current rush toward digitization. At least our current Bookkeepers
deacidification bandwagon doesn’t “appear to” be destroying the originals even
though it is questionable that the money needs to be spent for materials that
are almost by definition little used.
My general reaction to these
accusations is to simply admit that I/we are guilty of many of the acts as
charged. But to admit guilt to these
acts is a bit like admitting having done all sorts of dumb things while a
teenager: Yes, we put the band
teacher’s VW bug on top of the gymnasium in 1959; but no, we have not done it
lately.
Yet, I don’t want to minimize the
seriousness of what has been done in the name of library preservation: I/we did hype the wood pulp movement
including making the double fold test part of the library culture, supported
the disbinding/discarding of bound volumes, sold off printed volumes replaced
by film, minimized the importance of working with the original formats, been
preoccupied with cost savings at the expense of user access, and went after and
accepted the money NEH was willing to give (although we did get them to
at least allow replacement/repair costs as part of the cost share). Most of these acts, however, are past
practices. We were confronted with what we accepted as a problem, we did our
best, and we made mistakes.
Some of these acts, however, are
still current and these deserve additional serious thought and reflection: I am
personally left looking for answers to three questions:
1. Should we continue to seek/take
NEH reformatting money?
2. Should we give deacidification
any time or attention?
3. Should digitization efforts be
instead of, or in addition to, providing access to printed materials?
My answers are no, no, and a fudged
no. No, we shouldn’t continue to spend
anyone’s money on reformatting materials unless there is truly no other
alternative including inexpensive protective enclosures for all but the rare
volume that is at the corn flakes stage.
At Columbia we put away the preservation microfilm vacuum approach at
least 15 years ago — and many would dispute if we ever really used it (well,
maybe it was used for 30 or 40 feet of books).
I have always thought it was
curious how reformatting could only be used for books no one was interested in:
books for which there were no other editions including reprints available, too
few copies had been printed in the first place to permit purchase on the OP
market, and preservation photocopying couldn’t be justified on the basis of
expected use. Books that passed each of
these tests could be filmed. Saying no
to NEH money, however, is easy for me since I am now in Hong Kong and can’t
take the money.
No, we shouldn’t give systematic
deacidification any time or attention.
This is a tough decision since one of my last acts at Columbia
was to allocate $25,000 annually to employ the Bookkeepers approach for new
books coming from countries not printing on acid free papers. Deacidification is proactive, but I think
the money spent on it would be better spent on my next fudged no.
Should digital efforts be instead
of, or in addition to the continued purchase of printed materials? Having spent the last five years as a
student and loved using full text journals, I can’t whole heartedly support the
idea that digital access in the absence to the originals is bad. Looking at our full text download statistics
also convinces me that full text is extremely popular with all users — not just
me. Yes, I understand that the OCR
technology that is going on behind my searches, and then reading PDF versions
of the original pages, is a joke; but such indexing lets me scan so many more
articles than I would have otherwise.
And I find that I am equally enthusiastic about electronic reference
works, monographs, and especially electronic dissertations. But if I didn’t have sufficient funds to do
both (Columbia does), I would feel justified in buying only digital and
hope that the student who wants/needs to use the printed version will be able
to borrow it from libraries than can afford to do both or who are anti-digital.
So in the end I enjoyed reading Baker’s hyperbolic diatribe
in a self flagellating sort of way, although I totally protest/condemn his
personal attacks on Pat Battin.
She has vision and integrity, rare qualities and rarer to be found in
the same person. She is guilty of
taking part in promoting the Slow Fires hype, but she is not alone in
her use of this technique to draw attention to a problem that she feels
strongly about. Mr. Baker is
equally guilty of this sin as well. He
made several points that are worth serious consideration.