Subject: Nicholson Baker article
As one of those terrible administrators, I want to ask a couple of questions about the three letters in the most recent Cons DistList 14:25. The first two writers, Mitchell Bishop and Colin Webb, simply take Baker's statements as being the case and don't add new information to the discussion. Webb, in Australia, speaks of the desirability of saving one hard copy. So does Farren. What is the need for this, if not the "sentimental" reasons that Farren speaks of? I know this is a hard-nosed question; I'd like a hard-nosed answer. I'm just as sentimental as the next guy, but I'm in the position of having to manage funds and make decisions--one hopes with good advice--on this sort of issue. Other answers might include whether, as is claimed, microfilming technique and quality control is better now than it used to be. If not, can it be? If so, back to first question. Is there good measured qualitative information on what Colin Webb calls the "variable rates" of decay of newsprint? --I've begun seeing anecdotal statements about this since the Baker article, but not data. Is it affected by usage? If not, what affects it and can this be brought into microfilming and other preservation decisions? If so, then the calculus of use vs. preservation comes very much into play, and the perfectly-preserved newspapers become candidates for decay if in fact they are used (as, say, the lone remaining hard copy). Colin says, "Managers with too much to do, "80/20" agendas, and a host of new pressures piling up, tend to simplify the evidence, look for the broad approach, and aren't very interested in what look like redundant solutions. As preservation managers we fall for this, and so do our senior executives." Well, yes. What would you have us (and I mean you and me, Colin) do? The right answer to present to Baker is that society is not supporting preservation, not that librarians are doing a bad job of it. Meanwhile we have to make partial decisions, cost-effective decisions, bang-for-the-buck decisions, in the absence of alternatives. It becomes sentimental in its own way to bemoan the loss of these newspapers to the guillotine without considering the gain of preserved newspapers as a result of intervention. Losses at the margin? of course. How big is the margin? Let's talk about it. But it isn't managers-vs.-real-librarians here. Meanwhile the Baker article, like his previous ones, has enough truth in it that it needs to be dealt with. Not by flagellation of an unsupported profession, however, but by advocacy for more social support for doing the right things better. The "redundancy" that Colin and Donald talk about is very desirable; how about redundancy in funding so that we can experiment, and to keep more than one without losing another? *That's* the argument to be made. Our colleagues, as Colin rightly says, are not the enemy. --pg Peter S. Graham Syracuse University Library Syracuse, NY 13244-2010 315-443-5530 Fax: 315-443-2060 *** Conservation DistList Instance 14:26 Distributed: Wednesday, November 8, 2000 Message Id: cdl-14-26-001 ***Received on Tuesday, 24 October, 2000