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Re: New Yorker



7/20/00

        This has probably, if it has done nothing else, wound up selling more
issues of the 7/24 New Yorker to the librarian and archivist communities. I
know I want to see what Mr. Baker has to say in the original.

        Not yet having done so, I still wonder whether some words of Thomas
Tanselle in A Rationale of Textual Criticism might be apropos here:

        "It follows that all librarians and other collectors should think twice
before disposing of, or rebinding, a tattered copy of any edition of any
work, recognizing the grave significance of these destructive acts. When
they...think that something has been gained, they are of course deceiving
themselves, for the new one---even if by a singular chance it contains an
identical text---is a separate physical object, and is thus a separate
witness to the text of a work it attempts to transmit. It cannot possibly
be a 'replacement', for one witness cannot stand in for another. How
absurd, then, are those library programs (ironically called 'preservation'
programs) in which deteriorating books are microfilmed or photocopied and
the books themselves destroyed. (The microfilming [one might add:
digitizing] is often a necessity; the destruction of what remains of the
originals never is.) ....[T]he notion that a printed text can be saved by
photographing one copy fails to recognize that such a text is part of a
particular physical object and becomes something else when placed in a
different physical setting...."

        Perhaps Mr. Baker is trying to get librarians to think twice about
reformatting texts on the scale on which this is increasingly occurring,
however justifiably in many cases...?


Ed Southern

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Edwin Southern, Ph.D  (esouthern@ncsl.dcr.state.nc.us)
Head, State Records Unit
Department of Cultural Resources
Division of Archives and History
Archives and Records Section
Records Services Branch
4615 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4615

Phone 919/733-3540
Fax 919/715-3627

Opinions expressed in this message may
not represent the policy of my agency.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

-----Original Message-----
From:   Richard Cox [SMTP:rcox@MAIL.SIS.PITT.EDU]
Sent:   Thursday, July 20, 2000 11:33 AM
To:     ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject:        New Yorker

[snip]

... Right!  Baker didn't understand WHAT he was writing about.  It
is a very antiquarian, idiosyncratic view of the world.

[snip]

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