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

3. Barrow’s results: Deterioration of Book Stock, Causes and Remedies, conducted by W. J. Barrow, ed. Randolph W. Church (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1959), p. 15.

4. “The research carried out”: Leon J. Stout et al. of the Preservation Committee of the Pennsylvania State University Libraries, “Guaranteeing a Library for the Future,” Restaurator 8:4 (1987).

5. “Barrow startled the library world”: Rutherford D. Rogers, “Library Preservation: Its Scope, History, and Importance,” in Merrill-Oldham and Smith, Library Preservation Program.

6. Perhaps all those who, like Peter Sparks: “Library officials say that unless the destruction is stopped, 97 percent of the volumes in the federal government’s premier library — also the world’s largest information storage center — will eventually disintegrate. All other libraries are thought to face the same problem. ‘It’s a very serious problem but, fortunately, we think we’re moving rapidly toward a solution that we think is very promising,’ said Peter G. Sparks, director of the library’s Mass Deacidification Program.” Rensenberger, “Acid Test.”

7. “From the investigations”: Clapp, Future of the Research Library, p. 87.

8. hire some statisticians: Council on Library Resources, Sixth Annual Report, p. 22.

9. “these 1.75 billion pages”: Clapp, Future of the Research Library, p. 27.

10. Robert N. DuPuis: DuPuis also worked at General Foods. At Philip Morris, he became chairman of the Industry Technical Group of TIRC, the Tobacco Industry Research Committee, stalwart funder of pro-cigarette scientific research. Another Philip Morris scientist, John D. Hind, served as a consultant to the Barrow lab; see Barrow Research Laboratory, Permanence/Durability of the Book: A Two-Year Research Program (Richmond: Barrow Research Laboratory, 1963).

11. DuPuis wrote memos: Richard Kluger writes that “Philip Morris’s research director, Robert DuPuis, sent a memo dated July 20, 1956, from Richmond to the company’s top officers in New York reporting in ventilated cigarettes ‘a proved decrease in carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide plus an increase in oxygen content of the smoke’; the former, he explained, was ‘related to decreased harm to the circulatory system as a result of smoking,’ while the latter meant there would be less chance of depriving cells of oxygen ‘and of starting a possible chain of events leading to the formation of a cancer cell.’ ” Richard Kluger, Ashes to Ashes: America’s Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), p. 184. See also Council on Library Resources, Twelfth Annual Report (1968), p. 29.

12. “If we do find any”: Gene Borio, Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue Draft: Corporate Activity Project: Part 1, undated, www.tobacco.org/Documents/jonesday1.htm, p. 101. DuPuis appeared on the second of two See It Now programs on “Cigarettes and Lung Cancer,” CBS TV, June 7, 1955.

13. Vacudyne: See Gwinn, “CLR and Preservation,” and Gene Borio, “Secret Tobacco Document Quotes,” www.tobacco.org; Kluger, Ashes to Ashes, discusses tobacco ammoniation.

14. Litton Bionetics: Gwinn, “CLR and Preservation.” Litton also performed the DEZ tests on guinea pigs: the report is entitled Guinea Pig Dermal Sensitization Study DEZ (Diethyl Zinc) Treated Paper and Untreated Paper, Final Report (Rockville, Md.: Litton Bionetics), 1984.

15. caused headaches and nausea: U.S. Congress, Book Preservation Technologies, p. 27.

16. “comparatively expensive”: Clapp, Future of the Research Library, p. 28.

17. “sensible solution”: Clapp, Future of the Research Library, p. 29.

18. “storage, binding, and other maintenance costs”: Clapp, Future of the Research Library, p. 28.

19. “already the standard method”: Clapp, Future of the Research Library, p. 28.

20. long, multi-part essay: Clapp, “Story of Permanent/Durable Book Paper,” Scholarly Publishing, January, April, and July 1971.

21. known and advised since 1948: Crowe, “Verner W. Clapp as Opinion Leader,” p. 47.

22. “an essentially solitary worker”: Clapp, “The Story of Permanent/Durable Book Paper” (July 1971), p. 362.

23. a formula developed by the S. D. Warren: S. D. Warren had a recipe that employed “lime mud,” an alkaline substance; the paper performed better in accelerated-aging tests. See Richard D. Smith, “Deacidification Technologies: State of the Art,” in Luner, Paper Preservation.

24. “treated his sources crudely”: Thomas Conroy, “Methodology of Testing for Permanence of Paper — Progress Notes no. 2—Tentative Outline,” quoted in Roggia, “William James Barrow,” p. 7.

25. “aggressive promoter”: Roggia, “William James Barrow,” p. 177.

26. “widely, if incorrectly, credited”: Roggia, “William James Barrow,” p. 176.

27. “stop holding onto myths”: Roggia, “William James Barrow,” pp. 166–76.

28. “I have spent many hundreds of hours”: Verner Clapp, letter to Bernard Barrow, August 19, 1968, in Crowe, “Verner W. Clapp as Opinion Leader,” pp. 100–101.

29. “catastrophic decline”: Clapp, “Story of Permanent/Durable Book Paper” (July 1971), p. 230.

30. “disastrous condition of paper”: Clapp, “Story of Permanent/Durable Book Paper” (July 1971), p. 231.

31. “The Road to Avernus”: Clapp, “Story of Permanent/Durable Book Paper” (January 1971), p. 114. The phrase alludes to Virgil’s Aeneid 6:126. The Avernian Lake, near Vesuvius, whose sulphurous vapors supposedly killed any bird that flew over it, was an entrance to hell.

32. “librarian/archivist’s worst enemy”: Clapp, “Story of Permanent/Durable Book Paper” (January 1971), p. 115.

CHAPTER 16 — It’s Not Working Out

1. “knew more about old papers”: Clapp, “Story of Permanent/Durable Book Paper” (July 1971), p. 356.

2. He quit college: Sally Cruz Roggia, “William James Barrow,” in Dictionary of Virginia Biography (Richmond: Library of Virginia, 1998).

3. “The Barrow laminating process”: Clapp, “Story of Permanent/Durable Book Paper” (January 1971), p. 112.

4. same substance that microfilm: Barrow published an early description of his method, entitled “The Barrow Method of Laminating Documents,” in the Journal of Documentary Reproduction 2:2 (June 1939), which in the thirties and forties was a center of microfilm theory. An experienced operator could laminate between 75 and 125 documents per hour, wrote Barrow.

5. Protectoid: James L. Gear, “Lamination after 30 Years: Record and Prospect,” American Archivist 28:2 (April 1965).

7. The reason that Barrow knew: See Smith, “Deacidification Technologies.”

8. New York Public Library: Five rare playbills from the NYPL’s theater collection were the first to be treated to the Barrow process, in 1956. John Baker, “Preservation Programs of the New York Public Library.”

9. the Library of Congress: Barrow demonstrated his lamination process at the Library of Congress in 1951, at a staff forum called “Techniques for the Preservation of the Collections,” presided over by Verner Clapp and Luther Evans. “The acetate film seals up the document and makes it relatively resistant to acidic gases and other injurious elements in the air,” reported the Library of Congress Information Bulletin. At the same forum, Barrow also previewed his experimental technique of ink-lifting: the “process of transferring print from a deteriorated paper to a good rag paper” by stripping off a layer of ink onto a sheet of acetate and then laminating the acetate to a sheet of rag paper. “Staff Forum,” Library of Congress Information Bulletin 10:42 (October 15, 1951). In an obituary of Barrow published in the Eleventh Annual Report (1967) of the Council on Library Resources, the Library of Congress is said to have “availed itself of this technique for a number of important documents” (p. 46). In addition to a regular-size laminator, the Library of Congress also bought from Barrow a large laminator for maps. [William James Barrow], Procedures and Equipment Used in the Barrow Method of Restoring Manuscripts and Documents (Richmond: W. J. Barrow, 1961), p. 11.