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

6. “varied greatly”: Shaffer, “Library of Congress Pilot Preservation Project.” Shaffer writes that “in nearly all cases the survey located at least one copy elsewhere which was, except for the brittleness of the paper, in excellent condition.”

7. “the slums”: Richard L. Williams, “The Library of Congress Can’t Hold All of Man’s Knowledge — But It Tries, As It Acquires a New $160-Million Annex,” Smithsonian 11:1 (April 1980), p. 43.

8. Frazer G. Poole: Library of Congress, “Frazer G. Poole,” Library of Congress Information Bulletin 26:10 (March 9, 1967).

9. at Clapp’s suggestion: Crowe, “Verner W. Clapp as Opinion Leader,” p. 86. Clapp rejected the traditional method of bookbinding, sewing through the fold, as too costly for most libraries (p. 88).

10. indiscriminate rebinding: See Linda J. White, Packaging the American Word: A Survey of Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century American Publishers’ Bindings in the General Collections of the Library of Congress, Library of Congress Preservation Directorate, 1997; formerly available at lcweb.loc.gov/preserv/survey. “It is alarming to find,” White writes, “that of the general collections 93 % of the sample items from the 1840s have been library bound; only 7 % remain in original publisher’s bindings.” White’s paper was also presented at a conference entitled “Getting Ready for the Nineteenth Century: Strategies and Solutions for Rare Book and Special Collections Librarians,” sponsored by the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section, Association of College and Research Libraries, American Library Association, June 23–26, 1998, Washington, D.C.

11. 98 three hundred thousand non-newspaper volumes: Lawrence S. Robinson, “Establishing a Preservation Microfilming Program: The Library of Congress Experience.” Microform Review 13:4 (fall 1984).

12. “embrittled to the extent”: Robinson, “Establishing a Preservation Microfilming Program.”

13. “The volumes are cut”: Robinson, “Establishing a Preservation Microfilming Program.”

14. “running our cameras against the clock”: William J. Welsh, “The Library of Congress: A More-Than-Equal Partner,” Library Resources and Technical Services 29:1 (January/March 1985): 89.

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

16. not bound by the Freedom of Information Act: “Although the Library is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, as amended (5 U.S.C. § 552), this Regulation follows the spirit of that Act consistent with the Library’s duties, functions, and responsibilities to the Congress. The application of that Act to the Library is not to be inferred, nor should this Regulation be considered as conferring on any member of the public a right under that Act of access to or information from the records of the Library.” Library of Congress Regulation 1917–3, September 18, 1997.

17. shelving everything: The library receives three free copies of a great many books — two under the copyright-deposit program and one under the Cataloging-in-Publication (CIP) program. “In fiscal year 1995, the Library obtained 49,201 books through the CIP program. These additional titles are either added to the collections or used as part of the Library’s exchange program.” They also receive the discards from other federal libraries; generally, they swap these for things they want, or they give them away. “In fiscal year 1995, the Library received more than two million items from Federal agencies, and, although only a very small number were selected for the collections, several thousand were used in exchanges with other libraries for materials needed by the Library of Congress. Many thousands of other Federal transfers were used in the Library’s surplus books programs.” In 1995, the estimated value of the books given to the library under the copyright deposits program was $20,158,594. General Accounting Office, Financial Statement Audit for the Library of Congress for Fiscal Year 1995, www.gao.gov/special.pubs/pw_loc.txt (viewed June 3, 2000). See also Linton Weeks, “Brave New Library,” The Washington Post Magazine, May 26, 1991, which describes the work of the Selections Office, where books that aren’t to be added to the collection are marked with a red X on the first page. Lolita Silva of that office told Weeks, “I think you develop a feel for the material. Sometimes with a book of poetry — how it’s published, how it’s presented to you — tells you it’s worth keeping.” Weeks writes that the library did not take elementary-school or high-school textbooks except those dealing with American history.

18. “I am happy to announce”: The memo, dated September 13, 2000, is from the head of the Library of Congress’s Processing and Reference Section to serials librarians; it refers to the library’s new program of asking certain publishers to stop sending the library items for copyright deposit.

19. Finnegans Wake: This story came from a book dealer. Verner Clapp and Luther Evans authorized the disposal of duplicates in the fifties, during a space crunch. Clapp noted on March 19, 1951, that he had visited the annex, deck 7, north, with Frederick Wagman and Luther Evans. “Agreed: To dispose of stuff from Dupl. Coll. by weeding good stuff, advertising the remainder & pulping if no bids are recd.” The library also throws away book jackets, except in rare instances, see lcweb.loc.gov/acq/devpol/bookjack.htm, June 15, 1999 (viewed June 2, 2000).

20. misshelved: Side-by-side duplicates make shelvers’ lives easier, and thus reduce shelving errors, because the copy remaining on the shelf offers a quick visual cue as to where a book is supposed to go.

21. A recent survey: White, Packaging the American Word. White created a random population of four hundred books sold by six American publishing houses between 1830 and 1914 to serve as a sample for her study of American bookbindings. She found that of these (“the rare books of tomorrow,” she called them) twenty-six percent had received an “inappropriate” rebinding, and about six percent were missing in inventory or Not on Shelf, even after special additional searches. Thirty-seven books had already been reformatted, and, of those, thirty-three were found to be “Reformatted (original destroyed)” while four were “Reformatted (original retained)”—thus, in her sample nearly ninety percent of the microfilmed books from these six American publishers had been destroyed. Nine books had been deacidified.

CHAPTER 11 — Thugs and Pansies

01. “Space is always a problem”: Irene Schubert, “Re: Serials microfilming,” PADG (Preservation Administrators Discussion Group), archived on the CoOL website (CoOL stands for Conservation OnLine), palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/padg/1997/10/msg00023.htm, October 31, 1997. Paula De Stefano, head of preservation at New York University, also contributed to this thread: she wrote that generally she stopped at the copyright cutoff date, then 1922. (That’s one reason so many older obscure things that libraries would otherwise have left alone were sliced open and expensively emulsioned — they’re in the public domain.) Then De Stefano wrote: “Of course, any titles already available on film are bought and the hard copy is tossed to make room on shelves. Space is a huge issue here.” PADG archives, CoOL website, October 31, 1997, palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/padg/1997/10/msg00022.htm. The current textbook of preservation microfilming says that it’s okay to throw out volumes that aren’t yet brittle, if you gain lots of space in doing so — hardly a preservational argument: “The institution may decide that filming long runs of serials, theses, or other coherent collections will so significantly ease space constraints that these items should be filmed as a unit even if some individual pieces are less suitable. For example, even if a few issues of a serial title were not acidic or not yet brittle, there would still be advantages in filming the entire run”—and getting rid of the paper. Lisa L. Fox, ed., Preservation Microfilming: A Guide for Librarians and Archivists, 2d ed. (Chicago: American Library Association, 1996), pp. 105–6.