Double Fold

by Nicholson Baker

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  “cost-effective buffer technology”: Commission on Preservation and Access, Newsletter 21 (March 1990).

  Technical Assessment Advisory Committee: The committee had a three-day retreat at the Coolfont Conference Center in September 1990, which the members judged “most productive.” Commission on Preservation and Access, Newsletter, September 1990.

  The relatively simple substitution: See my essay “Discards,” in The Size of Thoughts (New York: Random House, 1996).

  “Our biggest misjudgment was”: William Welsh, “Can Bill Welsh Conquer Time and Space for Libraries?” interview with Arthur Plotnik, American Libraries 15:11 (December 1984).

  “only a small increment”: M. Stuart Lynn, “Digital Technologies, Preservation and Access,” The Commission on Preservation and Access Newsletter 43 (March 1992), www.clir.org/pubs/cpanews/cpan143.htm. Actually, Lynn’s words here are “have our cake and eat it. too” because the OCR program interpreted the comma as a period. Michael Lesk is similarly recorded as estimating the number of “books per square fool” that a building can hold. Michael Lesk, Preservation of New Technology, a report of the Technology Assessment Advisory Committee to the Commission on Preservation and Access (Washington, D.C.: Commission on Preservation and Access, October 1992), www.clir.org/pubs/reports/lesk/lesk2.htm. These are tiny errors that nonetheless demonstrate the importance of keeping the original printed report.

  CHAPTER 35 – Suibtermanean Convumision

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  “anticipated resistance”: Task Force on Collection Management, Systemwide Operations and Planning Group, “Action/Decision Minutes,” February 26, 1999, UCI’s Information Page on UC Systemwide Library Planning, sun3.lib.uci.edu/~staff/system_wide.htm (viewed September 25, 2000).

  “digital collections can alleviate”: Anne Kenney, “Digital Image Quality: From Conversion to Presentation and Beyond,” paper presented at the Scholarly Communication and Technology conference, sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Emory University, Atlanta, April 24–25, 1997, arl.cni.org/scomm/scat/kenney.htm.

  “rapidly self-destructing”: Anne R. Kenney and Lynne K. Personius, The Cornell/Xerox/Commission on Preservation and Access Joint Study in Digital Preservation. Report: Phase 1, “Digital Capture, Paper Facsimiles, and Network Access” (December 1990).

  extremely rare math books: Cornell University Library Math Book Collection, moa.cit.cornell.edu/dienst-data/cdl-math-browse.htm. For instance, one of the books, Pierre Maurice Duhem’s Sur les déformations permanentes et l’hysteresis (Brussels: Hayez, 1896), is listed on the OCLC database as existing in two places, at Princeton and at the Burndy Library of MIT. For an early work on hyperspace by Giuseppe Veronese entitled Fondamenti di geometria a più dimensioni (Padua: Tipografia del Seminario, 1891), there are six U.S. libraries on OCLC (and one in São Paulo) listed as owning the original book.

  germ-free facsimiles: Kenney and Personius, Cornell/Xerox/Commission on Preservation and Access Joint Study.

  Peruvian guano: Solon Robinson, Guano: A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers; Containing Plain Directions How to Apply Peruvian Guano to the Various Crops and Soils of America (New York, 1853). If my count is correct, there are twelve original copies of Guano in the OCLC database (perhaps of two editions, perhaps of one edition differently cataloged), plus twelve microfiche copies made in 1985 by Lost Cause Press and one roll of microfilm produced by the Ohio Historical Society in 1985 and owned by Marietta College. See the Core Historical Literature of Agriculture, Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University, cdl.library.cornell.edu/chla/. Solon Robinson writes: “With assurances to my friends that I have no other interest in the increased consumption of guano, I am most sincerely and respectfully, Your old Friend, Solon Robinson.”

  “There may also be opportunities”: Kenney and Personius, Cornell/Xerox/Commission on Preservation and Access Joint Study.

  “escalating cost of storage”: “The Making of America: Creating Electronic Pathways to Our Heritage,” Cornell University Library and Cornell Information Technologies, 1993. One of the aims of the Making of America project was to win over humanities scholars, who “lag behind their counterparts in the sciences and professions in making use of sources on-line.” The proposal also mentions that Cornell “is committed to a policy of no new library building projects for central campus beyond the year 2000.”

  subterranean convulsion: “The Java Upheaval,” Manufacturer and Builder, January 1883, p. 219, cdl.library.cornell.edu. The URL for the page is cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%wFmanu%2Fmanu0015%2F&tif=00225.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi=bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABS1821-0015-623; select “text” in the box next to “View as” to see the text that has been OCR’d from the image. I searched for the word “mmm” in Cornell’s scan of the monumental and already fully microfilmed compendium of Civil War documents called The War of the Rebellion and found this from volume seven, p. 285, about the capture of Fort Donelson: “Timat evemming lime emmemv landed thirteen steamuboat loads of fresh troops. It was minov- mmm~mniP~st we could not homing maimmtain onr position agaumist smieli overwhnel maiming mmumbers. I xvas Satistie (1 that their last trool)s xvere ot (~mmeral Bimell’s comninand. We felt time wammt of re-elminoreemminemints, bmmt did not ask for thenin, because we knew they were not to be had.” The scanned image of this page is legible; the OCR text is, however, a wreck.

  “OCR accuracy is high”: I found this note by clicking on “A note on viewing the plain text of this volume” while browsing by title and year.

  “to preserve the informational content”: This production note appears on the first scanned page.

  “due to the brittle nature”: Cornell University Library, “The Conversion Process,” Making of America, cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/moa_conversion.htm.

  truffle hunting: Cornell’s Making of America database helped me find the poem about mummy paper in Punch, because it was republished (with no date) in Littell’s Living Age (which Cornell scanned and discarded), as well as the mummy item in Scientific American.

  CHAPTER 36 – Honest Disagreement

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  “Think about space costs”: Pamela W. Darling, “Microforms in Libraries: Preservation and Storage,” Microform Review 5:2 (April 1976). Darling also points out that the “cost of the microform is almost always less than would be the cost of binding the original issues, and no one has to claim missing issues, replace lost covers, or give readers no service for months while last year’s volumes are ‘At Bindery.’ Instead, the original issues can be held in the periodical reading area for as long as interest keeps them ‘current,’ and then sold, exchanged or discarded since the microform will be available for backfile reference.” In a 1974 article in Library Journal, Darling said that microfilm was “a medium more stable than paper,” which “takes up 90 percent less space to store.” “Developing a Preservation Microfilming Program,” p. 2803.

  “keep re-examining”: Pamela W. Darling, “A Local Preservation Program: Where to Start” (an article based on a paper presented at a “Books in Peril” conference), Library Journal, November 15, 1976. As a grande dame of the preservation movement, Darling later wrote the introduction to Nancy Gwinn’s textbook, Preservation Microfilming.

  special consultant: “National Preservation Program Office Expands,” Library of Congress Information Bulletin, November 5, 1984.

  self-study manual: Pamela Darling, ed., Preservation Planning Program: An Assisted Self-Study Manual for Libraries (Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, 1982).

  “may well be cheaper”: Patricia Battin, “The Management of Knowledge: Issues for the Twenty-first Century,” paper presented at the seventh international seminar, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Library Center, Kanazawa, Japan, 1989, in Welsh, Research Libraries, p. 399. On the same page, Battin writes Byronically of the “tangled web of new interdependencies” brought about by our grow
ing dependence upon technology.

  “millions of books”: Patricia Battin, Written Statement of Patricia Battin, Past President, Commission on Preservation and Access, on the Fiscal Year 1996 Appropriations for the National Endowment for the Humanities, March 31, 1995.

  References

  * * *

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  American Society of Information Scientists (ASIS). Pioneers of Information Science in North America, www.asis.org/Features/Pioneers/isp.htm.

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  ——. “Discards.” In The Size of Thoughts. New York: Random House, 1996.

  ——. “Weeds: A Talk at the Library.” In Reclaiming San Francisco, ed. James Brooke et al. San Francisco: City Lights, 1997.

  ——. “Deadline.” The New Yorker, July 24, 2000.

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  Barrow Research Laboratory. Permanence/Durability of the Book: A Two-Year Research Program. Richmond: Barrow Research Laboratory, 1963.

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  ——. Permanence/Durability of the Book—V: Strength and Other Characteristics of Book Papers, 1800–1899. Richmond: Barrow Research Laboratory, 1967.

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  Battin, Patricia. “The Electronic Library—a Vision for the Future.” EDUCOM Bulletin, summer 1984.

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  ——. “Crumbling Books: A Call for Strategies to Preserve Our Cultural Memory.” Change, September/October 1989.

  [——]. “Preserving Our Crumbling Collections: An Interview with Patricia Battin, President, Commission on Preservation and Access.” Betty J. Turock, interviewer. The Bottom Line 3:4 (1989).

  ——. “The Management of Knowledge: Issues for the Twenty-first Century.” Paper presented at the seventh international seminar, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Library Center, Kanazawa, Japan, 1989. In Welsh, Research Libraries—Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.

  ——. “The Silent Books of the Future: Initiatives to Save Yesterday’s Literature for Tomorrow.” Logos (London) 2:1 (1991).

  ——. Written Statement of Patricia Battin, Past President, Commission on Preservation and Access, on the Fiscal Year 1996 Appropriations for the National Endowment for the Humanities, March 31, 1995.

  Bellardo, Lewis J. “National Archives Preservation Research Priorities: Summary and Update.” In Preservation Research and Development: Round Table Proceedings, September 28–29, 1992, ed. Carrie Beyer. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress Preservation Directorate, June 1993.

  Biggar, Joanna. “Must the Library of Congress Destroy Books to Save Them?” The Washington Post Magazine, June 3, 1984.

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  ——. “The Historic Library and the Electronic Future.” Universidade de São Paulo, March 18–25, 1999, www.usp.br/sibi/Billington_Lecture.htm (viewed August 22, 2000).

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