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

10. “We have found”: David H. Stam, “The Questions of Preservation,” in Welsh, Research Libraries — Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, p. 313.

11. Zentrum für Bucherhaltung: Ann Olszewski, the Preservation Librarian at the Cleveland Public Library, sent a book from her library’s local-history collection to ZFB for restoration. Olszewski’s predecessor had sent the book to Booklab for photocopying, where it was disbound, but Olszewski didn’t throw it away. Post paper-splitting, the repaired book is “nothing short of miraculous,” she says.

CHAPTER 17 — Double Fold

1. MIT Fold Tester: Barrow used a slightly gentler device that oscillated through ninety degrees. It was built to his own specifications, making independent verification of his results impossible; later he used the MIT machine exclusively; in any case, the nature of the mechanical stress is the same.

2. “Changes in folding endurance”: D. F. Caulfield and D. E. Gunderson, “Paper Testing and Strength Characteristics,” in Luner, Paper Preservation. “It has long been known,” writes Robert Feller, “that folding endurance decreases markedly in the early stages of thermal aging of paper, whereas tensile strength does not.” Robert L. Feller, Accelerated Aging (Marina del Rey, Calif.: Getty Conservation Institute, 1994).

3. B. L. Browning: B. L. Browning, “The Nature of Paper,” in Deterioration and Preservation of Library Materials, ed. Howard W. Winger and Richard D. Smith (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). Caulfield and Gunderson similarly note that the results of fold-endurance tests “vary widely even on presumably identical samples.” See also Gerhard Banik and Werner K. Sobotka, “Deacidification and Strengthening of Bound Newspapers Through Aqueous Immersion,” in Luner, Paper Preservation: “Although the folding endurance is a sensitive test procedure, it only leads to reasonable results when applied to new and strong paper samples.”

4. “While folding endurance”: Hendriks, “Permanence of Paper,” p. 133, n. 2.

5. “None of the commonly used paper tests”: Hendriks, “Permanence of Paper,” p. 133.

6. “simulates the bending of a leaf”: Barrow Research Laboratory, Test Data of Naturally Aged Papers (Richmond, Va.: Barrow Research Laboratory, 1964), p. 13.

7. one of the Barrow Laboratory’s books: Barrow Research Laboratory, Permanence/Durability of the Book.

8. one of the last big experiments: Barrow Research Laboratory, Permanence/Durability of the Book — V: Strength and Other Characteristics of Book Papers, 1800–1899 (Richmond: Barrow Research Laboratory, 1967).

9. Clapp’s literary assistance: “Clapp’s editorial aid to Barrow was of the most intensive kind — typically page-on-page of notes suggesting the clarification of meaning, restructuring and reordering of text, deletion of whole sections, and addition of fact and opinion. There is no evidence that Clapp provided such extensive and extended collaboration to any other person at any time.” Crowe, “Verner W. Clapp as Opinion Leader,” pp. 50–51.

10. including seven books: Frazer G. Poole, “William James Barrow,” in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science (New York: Dekker, 1969).

11. “An ‘unusable’ record”: Williams, Preservation of Deteriorating Books, p. 15. Williams is following Barrow, who at one point defined as “unusable” a book having a fold endurance of between one tenth of a fold and one fold. “A leaf in a book of this strength should be turned with much care and is unsuitable for use unless restored.” Barrow Research Laboratory, Test Data of Naturally Aged Papers, p. 41. (Barrow’s fractional folds are scientifically meaningless, by the way.) Elsewhere, Barrow says that papers that fail to survive three folds on an MIT tester are “brittle papers needing restoration.” Barrow Research Laboratory, Permanence/Durability of the Book, p. 10.

12. whose page “breaks off”: Preservation Department, Indiana University Bloomington Libraries, Preservation Department Manual, www.indiana.edu/~libpres/Manual/prsmanual2.htm, last revised March 16, 2000.

13. “four corner test”: Mono Acquisitions and Rapid Cataloging (MARC), MARC Procedures: Brittle Books, Northwestern University, www.library.nwu.edu/marc/procedures/brittle.htm, last revised March 10, 1999.

14. “when a lower corner”: “Brittle Books Replacement Processing,” Memorandum 95-1, Ohio State University Libraries Preservation Office, www.lib.ohio-state.edu/OSU_profile/preweb/memo951.htm, July 1995. Brittle books under this definition “are not able to be rebound or routinely repaired.”

15. “very gentle tug”: Preservation Department, University of Maryland Libraries, Brittle Materials and Reformatting Unit, www.lib.umd.edu/UMCP/TSD/PRES/checkrelated.htm, last revised July 28, 1999.

16. “in jeopardy when anyone”: Paul Koda, “The Condition of the University of Maryland Libraries’ Collections,” Technical Services Division, University of Maryland Libraries, www.lib.umd.edu/UMCP/TSD/PRES/surtext.htm, last revised March 5, 1999.

17. Columbia University: In 1987, Columbia’s method was as follows: “To TEST FOR PAPER STRENGTH fold the lower corner of page 50 back-and-forth three times. (For volumes less than 100 pages long, fold corner of page located about 1/3 of the way from title page.) If the paper withstands folding and a slight tug it is strong and can be sent for commercial treatment. If paper folds 2 or 3 times but then falls off it is borderline brittle and must be sent to the Conservation Lab for treatment. If the paper breaks easily it is brittle and can only be replaced, filmed, photocopied or boxed.” Columbia University Libraries, Preservation Department, The Preservation of Library Materials: A CUL Handbook, 4th ed., March 1987, p. 2.

18. “A book is considered”: “Definition of Brittleness,” Reprographics Unit, Preservation Department, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, web.uflib.ufl.edu/preserve/repro/brittle/britdef.htm, last revised December 3, 1996.

19. “planned deterioration”: “Planned Deterioration: Guidelines for Withdrawal,” Reprographics Unit, University of Florida, web.uflib.ufl.edu/preserve/repro/brittle/autowd_pd.htm, 1998.

20. If and when: George A. Smathers Libraries, Preservation Bulletin 7.6, August 11, 1992, web.uflib.ufl.edu/cm/manual/CMManual7-6.htm, part of A Manual for Collection Managers. This particular Florida document defines an item as brittle if it fails to survive a “double fold test measure less than six.” Though the chapter is dated 1992, the Manual is listed as “Updated 5/17/99.”

21. “one cannot qualify a book page”: Hendriks, “Permanence of Paper,” p. 133. See also David Erhardt, Charles S. Tumosa, and Marion F. Mecklenburg, “Material Consequences of the Aging of Paper,” in Preprints, ICOM Committee for Conservation, vol. 2, twelfth triennial meeting, Lyon, 1999: “Even quite degraded paper retains most of its elasticity, and it is only ‘abuse’, such as folding over a corner, that results in damage. Careful handling is still safe.”

CHAPTER 18 — A New Test

Edmund Gosse: A company called Archival Survival microfilmed Questions at Issue in 1991 for New York University’s preservation department.

I turned the page: Really I should say “I turned the leaf”: bibliographers make a distinction between leaves and pages, there being a page on either side of a leaf. But I’m speaking loosely here.

not have been creased in vain: Linda White, author of Packaging the American Word, the survey of book bindings at the Library of Congress (since suppressed by the library), tested all the books in her sample for brittleness in the approved Library of Congress manner by folding a corner until it broke. She found that only fifteen books, out of 294 she tested (i.e., the 294 she was able to test out of the 400 she took from the catalog as her sample, some of which were missing or Not on Shelf or destroyed after filming), were classifiable (using Library of Congress definitions) as “Brittle Unusable.” (Some of the other books from her sample that had been reformatted and destroyed would presumably have failed their fold tests, too, however.) White told me that in the first ten or so fold tests that she performed, she made fairly big corners, and then they got gradually smaller. “Toward the end they’re just these tiny little things, because I started feeling so guilty about taking those corners off.” She kept the broken-off folds in a Baggie in her desk.