With meticulous detective work and Baker's well-known explanatory power, Double Fold reveals a secret history of microfilm lobbyists, former CIA agents, and warehouses where priceless archives are destroyed with a machine called a guillotine. Baker argues passionately for preservation, even cashing in his own retirement account to save one important archive-all twenty tons of it. Written the brilliant narrative style that Nicholson Baker fans have come to expect, Double Fold is a persuasive and often devastating book that may turn out to be The Jungle of the American library system.
writer | book conservator | typophile | space cadet | heloise or hester | pilot of the airwaves | ╚╦╩═╬♥╬═╩╦╝she/her | all opinions are my own
@juliawants An older one along that vein is Nicholason Baker’s Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper (2001). He has strong opinions.
Sleeping dog. Novelist, poet, rock & bird nerd. He/him. CEO @twuc, Chair @IntAuthors - Opinions entirely my own, so don’t even. @jkdegen@mstdn.ca
@KevOnStage I recommend “Double Fold” by Nicholson Baker for a history of microfiche and it’s many problems. https://t.co/yA7ibDi5s5
"There's no mistaking the passion and intelligence he brings to his task or the fiery zest with which he relays his most damning anecdotes." -Chicago Tribune
"Provocative . . . impassioned and compelling." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"A magnificent crusade and he tells its story with a novelist's flair. . . . This book is a thumping indictment of America's great libraries. They have much to answer for" -Chicago Sun-Times