Nicholson Baker - Double Fold - Libraries and the Assault on Paper

29. “files of American and foreign newspapers”: William Warner Bishop, “Thirty Years in the Library of Congress, 1899 to 1929,” in Essays Offered to Herbert Putnam by His Colleagues and Friends on His Thirtieth Anniversary as Librarian of Congress, 5 April 1929, ed. William Warner Bishop and Andrew Keogh (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929), quoted in Paul M. Angle, The Library of Congress: An Account, Historical and Descriptive (Kingsport, Tenn.: Kingsport Press, 1958), p. 53.

30. “badly congested condition”: Serials Division, Library of Congress, “Serials Division Report, 1949–1950” in Annual Reports, Reference Department, t.s., Library of Congress Manuscripts Division. Each department head submitted an annual report to the librarian of Congress; they are internal documents, not to be confused with the library’s published annual reports, which are beautifully produced books. In the published annual reports, the decision to buy microfilm copies of newspapers from external sources (e.g., Recordak), and to give away or throw away the bound originals in order to conserve space, is not mentioned.

31. “merely more of the same”: Verner Clapp, foreword to J. C. R. Licklider, Libraries of the Future (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1965).

32. steady space model: Also known as the “static-capacity” model. Ann Okerson, once head of the Serials Division at Simon Fraser University Library, Burnaby, British Columbia (now a big gun in digitalism at Yale), wrote in 1985: “In anticipation of the space problem, the chief librarian had earlier proposed a ‘steady space’ policy which undertook to contain the Library’s collections within the existing building until the year 2000 by various means, including microfilm alternatives to hardcopy, resource sharing, using online facilities, moving to high-density shelving for lower-use research materials, and weeding/discard.” Okerson’s library sold some of its more valuable backfiles to a dealer in Scarsdale, or swapped them for microfilm, an arrangement that “turned out to be very fruitful for the library.” Ann Okerson, “Microform Conversion — A Case Study,” Microform Review 14:3 (summer 1985). In the early nineties, Okerson advised William Bowen, president of the A. W. Mellon Foundation, as the Foundation planned its ambitious assault on paper. See Anthony M. Cummings et al., University Libraries and Scholarly Communication: A Study Prepared for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Association of Research Libraries, November 1992, www.lib.virginia.edu/mellon/mellon.htm.

33. “It is an art”: Clapp, “Good Beginning.”

34. “permitting the disposal”: Marley, “Newspapers and the Library of Congress,” in Veaner, pp. 429, 436n.

35. None of this epochal activity: The closest the library came at the time to publicly revealing what was afoot was the statement that “since 1939 the Library has been engaged in preserving its newspaper files by transferring them to microfilm,” in a section describing the microfilming of foreign archives. Library of Congress, Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1952 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), p. 62. Luther Evans makes no reference to the decision to substitute microfilm (in-house or bought) for the library’s originals in his “Current Microfilm Projects at the Library of Congress,” Das Antiquariat (Vienna) 8 (August 15, 1952).

36. “The problem of deteriorating newspapers”: Library of Congress, Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1956 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1957), p. 25.

37. naval warehouse: In 1972, the library moved “some 50,000 volumes of bound domestic newspapers, which are gradually being microfilmed,” to the Duke Street warehouse, “to provide space for the expansion of the overcrowded general collections.” Bound foreign newspapers were stored in Alexandria beginning in 1968. Library of Congress, Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1972 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973), p. 36.

38. in its Information Bulletin: E.g., “From commercial sources, major titles being acquired on film to replace the Library’s holdings include the Portland, Maine, Press Herald for January 1940–December 1944 and January 1947–May 1950, the Rochester, N.Y., Democrat and Chronicle, 1905–June 1955 [my hometown paper], the Concord, N.H., Daily Monitor, 1874–1923, the Leavenworth, Kans., Times, April 25, 1871–1950, the Topeka, Kans., Daily Capitol, 1890–June 1950, the Dallas, Texas, Morning News, 1900–April 1950, the Portland, Oreg., Daily Journal, March 11, 1902–1936, and the Milwaukee, Wis., Journal, 1891–1909 and 1921–August 1950.” “Serial Division,” Library of Congress Information Bulletin 35:2 (January 9, 1976). Six months later, there were new titles: “Major domestic titles being filmed at the Library during the past half year are the Sioux City (Iowa) Journal for 1871–1874 and 1894–1950, the New York City Jewish Journal and Daily News for 1910–1915 and 1929–March 1953 (films for 1916–1928 are already available), the Portland (Oreg.) Oregonian for July 1874–December 1945, and as a cooperative project with the Enoch Pratt Free Library, the Baltimore (Md.) Post for November 20, 1922–March 24, 1934.” The list continues: “From commercial sources, major titles being acquired on film to replace the Library’s holdings included the New Orleans (La.) Item for 1920–1958, and the States for January 1916–August 1933, the Lewiston (Maine) Evening Journal for 1880–1955, the Topeka (Kans.) State Journal for 1880–June 1934, the Philadelphia (Pa.) Record for 1877–August 1910, the Las Vegas (Nev.) Sun for 1951–1961, the San Francisco (Calif.) Daily Alta California for 1859–1891, the Norfolk (Va.) Virginian-Pilot for 1945–May 1955, and the Nashville (Tenn.) American for 1853–September 1910.” “Newspaper Preservation Program,” Library of Congress Information Bulletin 35:28 (July 9, 1976).

39. “Wood pulp paper” here just seems: It isn’t true, of course, that newsprint suddenly became composed of wood pulp in 1870—paper manufacturers used some percentage of rag and straw for decades afterward, and they mixed chemically digested wood and mechanically ground wood together — but it is an appealing simplification if you want to clear shelf space. The Albany Argus of March 19, 1872, for example, contained “fifteen per cent. chemical woodpulp in addition to fifteen rag and seventy straw.” Lee, Daily Newspaper in America, p. 102.

40. detailed inventory: Library of Congress, “19th and 20th Century U.S. Newspapers in Original Format: Inventory of Volumes Held in Remote Storage,” 1998, www.loc.gov/rr/news/inventor.htm.

41. ALL ON FILM: One of the cards for the Chicago Daily Tribune confides: “Vols. For 1900–1971 have been discarded.”

42. “Generally we retain the inkprint”: See also “Collections Policy Statements: U.S. Newspapers,” November 1996, on the library’s website, lcweb.loc.gov/acq/devpol/neu.htm (viewed June 2, 2000): “The preferred format for permanent retention is silver-gelatin-on-polyester-base 35mm roll microfilm….newspapers published prior to 1870 on ‘rag’ paper may be retained in original ink-print format if they have artifactual value.”

43. rag-paper library editions: These titles are listed in the Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1938 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1939), p. 193. See also Library of Congress, Serials Division, Holdings of American Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Newspapers Printed on Wood Pulp Paper, mimeograph, May 1950, in which a note below the listing for The Detroit News says: “Commencing July 8, 1929, the Library of Congress file of this title is printed on rag paper.” The library owns no issues of The Detroit News now. Incidentally, in the 1941 annual report, the library announced its receipt of a gift of 221 volumes of the New York Forward, 1901–1927: “This extensive file of the early years of this important Jewish paper was received by gift from the Jewish Daily Forward, of New York. It supplements the later years of the file already on our shelves.” All but a handful of these gift volumes are gone, according to the library’s 1998 online inventory.