Vandals in the Stacks?: A Response to Nicholson Baker's Assault on Libraries
Libraries and archives have violated their public trust, argues Nicholson Baker in his controversial book Double Fold, by destroying traditional books, newspapers, and other paper-based collections. Baker's powerful and persuasive book is wrong and misleading, and Cox critiques it point by point, questioning his research, his assumptions, and his arguments about why and how newspapers, books, and other collections are selected and maintained.

Double Fold, which reads like a history of libraries and archives, is not a history at all, but a jourbanalistic account that is often based on fanciful and far-flung assertions and weak data. The present book provides an opportunity to understand how libraries and archives view their societal mandate, the nature of their preservation and documentary functions, and the complex choices and decisions that librarians and archivists face. Libraries and archives are not simple warehouses for the storage of objects to be occasionally called upon by a scholar, but they play vital roles in determining and shaping a society's knowledge and documentation.

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Vandals in the Stacks?: A Response to Nicholson Baker's Assault on Libraries
Libraries and archives have violated their public trust, argues Nicholson Baker in his controversial book Double Fold, by destroying traditional books, newspapers, and other paper-based collections. Baker's powerful and persuasive book is wrong and misleading, and Cox critiques it point by point, questioning his research, his assumptions, and his arguments about why and how newspapers, books, and other collections are selected and maintained.

Double Fold, which reads like a history of libraries and archives, is not a history at all, but a jourbanalistic account that is often based on fanciful and far-flung assertions and weak data. The present book provides an opportunity to understand how libraries and archives view their societal mandate, the nature of their preservation and documentary functions, and the complex choices and decisions that librarians and archivists face. Libraries and archives are not simple warehouses for the storage of objects to be occasionally called upon by a scholar, but they play vital roles in determining and shaping a society's knowledge and documentation.

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Vandals in the Stacks?: A Response to Nicholson Baker's Assault on Libraries

Vandals in the Stacks?: A Response to Nicholson Baker's Assault on Libraries

by Richard J. Cox
Vandals in the Stacks?: A Response to Nicholson Baker's Assault on Libraries

Vandals in the Stacks?: A Response to Nicholson Baker's Assault on Libraries

by Richard J. Cox

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$102.95 
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Overview

Libraries and archives have violated their public trust, argues Nicholson Baker in his controversial book Double Fold, by destroying traditional books, newspapers, and other paper-based collections. Baker's powerful and persuasive book is wrong and misleading, and Cox critiques it point by point, questioning his research, his assumptions, and his arguments about why and how newspapers, books, and other collections are selected and maintained.

Double Fold, which reads like a history of libraries and archives, is not a history at all, but a jourbanalistic account that is often based on fanciful and far-flung assertions and weak data. The present book provides an opportunity to understand how libraries and archives view their societal mandate, the nature of their preservation and documentary functions, and the complex choices and decisions that librarians and archivists face. Libraries and archives are not simple warehouses for the storage of objects to be occasionally called upon by a scholar, but they play vital roles in determining and shaping a society's knowledge and documentation.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780313323447
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 06/30/2002
Series: Contributions in Librarianship and Information Science , #98
Pages: 232
Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

RICHARD J. COX is Professor, School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Life Imitates Art?
The Big Picture and Baker's World
Why Can't the Paper Keepers Keep All the Paper?
Newspaper Warehouses
Wrong Priorities
The Real Thing
Burbaning Libraries, Discards, Card Catalogs, Nicholson Baker, and Library History
Persistent Images
Mundane Matters
Mom, I Harass Monks (Too)
Index

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