The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, Nicholson Baker

Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper

Nicholson Baker

The ostensible purpose of a library is to preserve the printed word. But for fifty years our country's libraries-including the Library of Congress-have been doing just the opposite, destroying hundreds of thousands of historic newspapers and replacing them with microfilm copies that are difficult to read, lack all the color and quality of the original paper and illustrations, and deteriorate with age.

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.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
  • Publish Date: Apr 9th, 2002
  • Pages: 400
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.08in - 5.28in - 0.81in - 0.78lb
  • EAN: 9780375726217
  • Categories: Media StudiesLibrary & Information Science - Administration & ManagementBooks & Reading

About the Author

Nicholson Baker has published five novels-The Mezzanine, Room Temperature, Vox, The Fermata, and The Everlasting Story of Nory-and two works of nonfiction, U and I and The Size of Thoughts. He lives with his wife and two children in Maine.

More books by Nicholson Baker

Book Cover for: A Box of Matches, Nicholson Baker
Book Cover for: The Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker
Book Cover for: Finding a Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art, Nicholson Baker
Book Cover for: Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization, Nicholson Baker
Book Cover for: House of Holes: A Book of Raunch, Nicholson Baker
Book Cover for: Vox, Nicholson Baker
Book Cover for: Room Temperature, Nicholson Baker
Book Cover for: The Everlasting Story of Nory, Nicholson Baker
Book Cover for: The Fermata, Nicholson Baker
Book Cover for: The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber, Nicholson Baker
Book Cover for: Checkpoint, Nicholson Baker
Book Cover for: U and I: A True Story, Nicholson Baker
Book Cover for: The Way the World Works, Nicholson Baker
Book Cover for: Substitute: Going to School with a Thousand Kids, Nicholson Baker
Book Cover for: The Paul Chowder Chronicles: The Anthologist, Nicholson Baker
Book Cover for: Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information ACT, Nicholson Baker

Praise for this book

"Got me, as he intended, hopping mad. Bless his obsessive-compulsive heart."-David Gates, The New York Times Book Review

"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