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Re: Nicholson Baker



That's great that you are reading Grant's memoirs, but that book may have
been made with much better paper and binding. Newspapers are not made with
the very best paper and without optimum care, deteriorate quickly. How many
libraries have you ever worked at where they enough space to collect and
properly maintain original newspapers for hundreds of years? I have been in
some where they collect a couple of years at a time and have the rest on
microfilm. We all have to set priorities in our work when we buy books,
online services, this journal or that journal, and newspapers. For us to sit
around wasting time second guessing our decisions or those of someone else
is futile. I don't agree with Nicholson Baker, but if he wants to collect
copies of old newspapers so that someday someone can read the want ads from
100 years ago, let him.

Barbara M. Pope, M.L.S.
Reference Librarian
O.J. Cloughly Alumni Library
St. Louis College of Pharmacy
4588 Parkview Place
St. Louis, MO 63110
Voice: +1 314-367-8700, ext. 1001
Fax:    +1 314-367-2784
Email:  bpope@mail.stlcop.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: abg [mailto:abg@WORLD.STD.COM]
Sent: 12 April, 2001 7:52 PM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: Re: Nicholson Baker


You're missing the point of Baker's articles, imho
He's criticizing libraries/archives who copy originals and then toss those
originals - for what purpose?  To save shelf space? Would you microfilm a
Guttenberg Bible and then toss the original because you now have a copy on
(11 grades of gray) microfilm?
It's one thing to make copies for ready access, to relieve the pressure on
the original items in your collection; but it's incumbent on librarians and
archivists to preserve the original material entrusted to them.
I'm reading right now an original editionof US Grant's memoirs that someone
in family had.  Alum/rosin sized paper. somewhat fragile; but stillreadable
and the pages turn w/o fallng into dust; & the experience of reading the
original is far, far greater than reading a microfilm (CD - you name it)
copy that can't give you the feel or appreciate  the experience of the real
thing.  That's why there are collectors who will pay a huge amount for the
stuff that libraries toss out too routinely.
Allan Goodrich
-----Original Message-----
From: Judith Turner <judy53211@YAHOO.COM>
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU <ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, April 11, 2001 10:04 PM
Subject: Re: Nicholson Baker


>Nicholson Baker has found a franchise -- bashing
>libraries, supposedly for their own good.  One only
>need look at UCITA, the latest copyright law
>revisions,
>the rapidly shifting information landscape with the
>tremendous possibilities and profits and pitfalls
>available, and realize libraries are going to have to
>change if they are to stay viable.
>
>As a person who believes in free and/or low cost
>library services wherever possible, the last thing
>libraries need is a Nicholson Baker trying to drag
>them back into the 19th century right now.  Libraries
>are in the process of reinventing themselves (I hate
>the word but it's shorthand for a concept we all know
>about.)
>
>Mr. Baker might be a "fine novelist" who considers
>himself a friend of libraries but it is some mythical
>library he imagines he remembers from his youth.
>
>Judy Turner
>Director, Library and Archives
>Milwaukee Public Museum
>
>--- Jennifer Hecker <geekarchivist@HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
>> Howdy everyone-
>>   Just got around to reading the last few days of
>> the list and noticed that
>> nobody mentioned that Nicholson Baker is also a very
>> fine novelist.
>
>__________________________________________________
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      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
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Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>