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Re: Nicholson Baker



To the list:

If any of you will be in the San Francisco Bay Area,
Me. Baker will be giving 3 public lectures here:

1.  Tonight, April 19, at 8 pm in San Francisco, at the
Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave.
Tickets are $17, many still available at the door.
Herbst Theatre is at the corner of Van Ness & McAllister

2. Friday, April 20, at 7:30 pm at Kepler's Bookstore
in Menlo Park:  El Camino, between Ravenswood and
Santa Cruz Avenues, east side of street.
FREE ! !

3.  Saturday, April 21, in Capitola, which is near Santa Cruz, CA.
I am sorry, but I do not have the rest of the info.

These appearances are a chance to talk to Mr. Baker in
person, and ask him questions.  I got the info from Random
House's PR department.  I cannot find any schedule for his
appearances.  Call Random House and ask them; that is how
I learned about Mr. Baker's appearance at Herbst Theatre in SF,
and in Capitola.

I want to thank all of you who have posted your thoughts about
Mr. Baker.  I learned from them.  I agree with those who believe
that it is important to keep as many original documents as possible.
At least Mr. Baker has managed to save some VERY important
newspapers.  I am going to read his book, and see exactly what
he says.  I am also going to his talk at Kepler's.  I will post here what
his response is to some of the questions and comments that have
been made on this list.

Also, in my opinion, we in the SAA do not need to agree with each
other about Mr. Baker.  I do not think it is necessary for the SAA to
present a united front to the world in this matter.

Mr. Baker has certainly made people much more aware of how
important it is to keep old documents, even though they may have
been microfilmed, and he has also made people question whether or
not microfilming is really a useful way to preserve the information
contained in newspapers.

In my job, I deal with engineering drawings which have been microfilmed
onto 35-mm-size film (aperture cards), and I have seen how difficult it is
to read the letters and numbers on a magnified image, even when the
image was made as sharp as possible, and the microfilm is in excellent
condition.  It is sometimes almost impossible to read some of the data
on the image.  Because of this, it is essential to keep all original
drawings.
Images can be scanned onto CD-ROMs, and clear copies can be made
from what has been scanned.

To me, there are two basic advantages to microfilm:
     1. It is VERY low-tech.  All you need to read it is a source of light
          and a way to magnify the image.
     2. The microfilmed image cannot be tampered with without the
          tampering being evident.  Lawyers love this!
I prefer to scan what can be scanned, onto CD-ROMs, and to preserve
as many originals as possible.  Then transfer the scanned information
to a newer form of electronic storage when the form it is in seems to be
getting near to becoming obsolete.

About CD-ROMs being hard to get info from: I read that they are not
necessarily all made to work identically; each CD-ROM has to be played
only on a certain machine.  This state of affairs is NOT good!  There
SHOULD be some uniform standards for CD-ROMs.  It makes no sense
at all to me that CD-ROMs behave this way.  I think the federal government
should step in and mandate uniformity in this area.

I am personally in favor of keeping as many complete runs of publications
as possible.  You just never know what wonders advances in technology
will provide all of us in the future, in the realm of electronic
information storage
and retrieval.  But please keep the originals !

Thanks again to all of you for your very well-thought-out postings.

Margaret Monroe

Caltrans Office Technician (Typing)
(UN-official Record-keeper for all records
in District 4 of all State-owned toll bridges in
Northern California)

State of California
Department of Transportation
District 4
Division of Structure Maintenance & Investigations, Toll Bridges
Room 10-400
P. O. Box  23660
Oakland, CA  94623-0660

Phone: 510-286-6188
Fax:  510-286-0353

Margaret Monroe

Caltrans Office Technician (Typing)
(UN-official Record-keeper for all records
in District 4 of all State-owned toll bridges in
Northern California)

State of California
Department of Transportation
District 4
Division of Structure Maintenance & Investigations, Toll Bridges
Room 10-400
P. O. Box  23660
Oakland, CA  94623-0660

Phone: 510-286-6188
Fax:  510-286-0353

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