[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

a baker's dozen



        I recently conducted a search through OCLC and RLIN of the
newspapers that Nicholson Baker has at his repository, a list of which is
available at http://www.gwi.net/~dnb/newsrep.html.  You will notice that
most of these are incomplete runs, and he claims that they are in excellent
usable condition, well this is because he only purchased those that were in
good non-brittle condition to substantiate his objective.  He claims that
his collection represents newspapers that are not available to the public,
but I have found that of the 101 newspapers titles he has, 85% of them are
incomplete runs.  Less than 22% are owned by less than 5 repositories in
their original format and 33% were available from more than 10 repositories
in paper.
        I just finished the Double Fold, and found that Baker has no concept
of RLG archival standards for microfilm, which have been in practice since
1985.  We all know that poor quality microfilm did exist up to this point,
and yet Baker condemns all film and those of us who use it.  To a certain
extent, I agree with his philosophy of keeping a copy of the newspaper in
its original format, but a copy of it on microfilm (done to standards and
stored under proper environmental conditions) will outlast a paper copy.  I
believe the negative press the field of preservation is getting from Baker's
bad review might just be enough to expand government funds to improve
conditions and may encourage national repositories to keep at least one
paper copy of newspapers available, but we'll see.

Harrison Wick
NEH Microfilm Project
Preservation Deparment
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>