[PADG:2014] RE: Views on Nicholson Baker's Double Fold and preservation issues sought

["Jacob Nadal" <jnadal@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'd be happy to help with this - I actually just wrapped up a few discussion
sessions on double fold and a library school course dealing with many of
these issues, so it's on my mind. I'm sure you'll hear a lot about Baker
himself - for my own part I think he's an interesting novelist and
appreciate how loudly he blew the whistle on some issues in librarianship
(librarians themselves have steadily blowing the same long before Baker, but
we were pretty quiet about it :), but the problems he's wrestling with have
a much larger life than he, you, or I will.

Microfilming and digitization are largely driven by the same intellectual
currents in librarianship (broader accessibility and an alleged avoidance of
the problems of physical media - the dream of Vannevar Bush and the Memex,
essentially). And while Baker portrayed this as a sort of butchery and
cypto-technophilia, I think it's more informative to look at it in the
context of the normal library mission - when collection managers select
books and serials, or when acquisitions departments place an order, they do
not consider (nor could publishers readily tell them) much about the
physical item.

Libraries acquire, catalog and distribute content that their patrons need.
Even in the special collections world, where the method of printing the page
may loom larger than the words that are written on the page, we are still
just seeing s shift in what constitutes the intellectual value of a
resource. Where researchers have an interest in original materials, we tend
to them as well. 

Microfilm, digital, and paper facsimiles all have their own successes,
failures, and fiscal realities, but none have obviated the value of original
items. Books have held their role as text carriers because they do the job
very well - if there were something better we'd use that. Individuals, many
of them librarians, are bibliophiles, to be sure, but the libraries are
generally more infophilic - we love having information available, and
naturally look for better ways to achieve that. It's important that we don't
get short sighted about digital as the end of technology. How will the
nanotechnologists of tomorrow develop technologies to remove acids and
recreate cellulose chains in brittle paper if there are no originals to work
with?

Digital preservation is an interesting term, too - I sometimes think that
"conservation" might be more appropriate, in the sense of the conservancy
movement, along the lines of botanical or wilderness conservation, or even
husbandry. Digital resources are something that cannot be made indelible to
the same degree that acid and lignin free, alkaline buffered paper; silver
halide on polyester microfilm; or stone tablets can be. They require
management, pruning, care and feeding, just like animals, gardens, and other
ecosystems. Also unlike physical media, they alter over time as we change
the technology used to access, create and duplicate them.

Let me know any specific questions you have - I'm mostly out of the office
the next few days but can send you further thoughts on this topic next week.

Best,
Jake

---------------------------------------------
Jacob Nadal, Acting Head of Preservation

E. Lingle Craig Preservation Laboratory
Indiana University Libraries
851 North Range Road, Bloomington, IN 47405
phone: (812) 855-6281 | jnadal@xxxxxxxxxxx
---------------------------------------------

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-padg@xxxxxxx [mailto:owner-padg@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Richard
Poynder
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2003 7:04 AM
To: padg@xxxxxxx
Subject: [PADG:2013] Views on Nicholson Baker's Double Fold and preservation
issues sought


Hi,

I'm working on an article for Information Today 
(http://www.infotoday.com/IT/default.shtml) on digital preservation and the 
reformatting issue. The aim is to look at the kind of issues raised by 
Nicholson Baker in Double Fold (which mainly deals with microfilming of 
course), and then broaden it out to cover the wider theme of digital 
preservation,  with a focus on libraries, librarians, and information 
providers. I would be interested in hearing the views of any librarians 
willing to share them with me, and can send a list of specific questions 
off the list.

Please contact me if you are able/willing to help.

Regards,


Richard Poynder


Richard Poynder
Freelance Journalist
Phone: + 44 (0)191-386-0072
Mobile: 0779-169-6733
Web: www.richardpoynder.com