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FW: Double Fold



Greetings, all.

After consulting with several members off list, I have sent the following
email off to the book reviewer at the Washington Post, as well as the BR
editor.  I sent a similar letter to the editor of Newsday, following the
article someone posted earlier today.

Given the level of publicity Baker is getting, it behooves us as members of
the community most under fire here to get the word to these people that
there's another side to the story.  I would like to see, quite frankly, some
public response to Baker from SAA and the ALA, as well as any other national
group that represents our constitutency.  I don't think we need to get
personal, but there are strong arguments that can be made to get the public
to understand the pressures we are under.

If I remember correctly, Richard Cox will be discussing the subject with
Baker at an upcoming forum; I'd like to suggest that the rest of us take
whatever opportunities we have to defend our professional decisions in
public and not leave Richard out there to do all the work himself.

Anyway, comments are welcome, as always.

DS

PS Confidential to Peter K. - I understand what you mean about the last
Para., but I'm going to take a little rhetorical license anyway.

______________________________________
Daniel Sokolow, Archives Coordinator
David Taylor Archives
North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System
155 Community Drive
Great Neck, NY 11021
mailto:dsokolow@nshs.edu

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sokolow, Daniel
> Sent: Monday, April 16, 2001 12:37 PM
> To:   'dirdam@washpost.com'; 'aranam@washpost.com'
> Subject:      Double Fold
>
> Dear Mr. Dirda,
>
> I'd like to respond to your review of Nicholson Baker's "Double Fold".  As
> a professional archivist, I am well aware of Mr. Baker's position on the
> preservation of newspapers and historical materials.  While I salute his
> zeal and interest in preserving these fine pieces of American history, I
> feel his attack on libraries and librarians is a bit shrill, and
> inconsiderate of the challenges facing our profession.
>
> I agree wholeheartedly that, in an ideal world, all materials should be
> kept.  I also grant that microfilming can be as bad or worse than
> deteriorating paper.  On the other hand, those of us in the profession are
> faced with damning choices no matter what we do, mainly because space,
> money, and other resources are always, _always_ limited.  I have had
> experience working in university, corporate, and nonprofit archives, and
> in no case have I had the resources to do everything that was asked or
> expected of the archives.  Management's understanding of the work done by
> librarians and archivists is extremely limited, and those resources are
> doled out accordingly.
>
> In Mr. Baker's worldview, these are excuses for not preserving our
> heritage.  In mine (and, if I may presume, that of most of my colleagues
> in the field), they are the daily reality of our lives.  I wouldn't choose
> to throw materials out or microfilm them if I had other options.  The rent
> on Baker's storage warehouse (which I hope he is keeping regulated for
> temperature and humidity, or else he may yet find himself in tons of
> crumbling newsprint) is more than half my department's annual budget.  I
> am expected to keep the critical historical records of an 18 hospital
> health system with about 300 square feet of storage space.  The idea that
> Baker proposes, that I and my colleagues are willfully ignoring our
> responsibility to preserve everything in its original, fails to take note
> of the reality most of us face.
>
> The average archives, at least in my experience, is staffed by at best 4
> or 5 people (most have only one or two), with the occasional volunteer.
> We are expected to handle reference, arrange and describe the materials
> within our collections, acquire new materials, preserve and protect them
> from wear and the elements, and increasingly provide electronic access to
> our collections.  All this when, as I said earlier, management has little
> concept of the role we play or the impact the materials in our collections
> can have.  There is little room, in my daily work, for Mr. Baker's
> connoisseur attitude - I sometimes have to make ugly choices in order to
> do what's best for the collections and the institution as a whole.
>
> I sometime think of archival work as triage - perhaps 5% of the documents
> (I mean that term very loosely) in any institution are ever going to make
> it to my attention, much less be saved.  I have to accept that it can't
> all be saved, hence my objection to Baker's point, as you wrote it: " the
> Library of Congress should keep everything it is sent, rather than
> selecting certain materials as disposable -- after all, who really knows
> what the future may need or find valuable?"  The truth is, we don't know.
> The archivist is forced to play gatekeeper, by selecting materials based
> on experience, the value of the materials, and sheer bloody luck to have
> some form of archival record.  A lot gets lost - that's just how history
> is, sometimes.
> As to the suggestion you make about having scholars make the decisions
> about what gets saved, we archivists _are_ scholars.  Virtually every
> archivist or librarian has an advanced degree; many, like me, have degrees
> in history. Most of our patrons would have us save everything; they are
> always concerned that something will get lost that they might need later.
> I'm afraid the world and Mr. Baker will sometimes have to trust our
> judgement, unless, like him, the world is prepared to take over the job
> for us.
> One last point - given a recent AP story about President Bush's
> forthcoming budget slashing federal appropriations to libraries by $39
> Million (ironic, considering Mrs. Bush's former career), I would have to
> ask Mr. Baker and those who support him, where, exactly, the funding for
> all his preservation efforts will come from.
>
> Sincerely,
> Daniel Sokolow
> PS Needless to say, these are my opinions, not my employer's.
>
> ______________________________________
> Daniel Sokolow, Archives Coordinator
> David Taylor Archives
> North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System
> 155 Community Drive
> Great Neck, NY 11021
> mailto:dsokolow@nshs.edu
>

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