Baker: Double Fold

First, this was a wonderful and thought-provoking book. Shortly into it I decided that, even though I couldn't really afford the time, I'd take a cue from Scrolling Forward and read it for the experience, rather than just for the information. I'll recommend it to others.

The subject was of course deeply distressing. It had never occurred to me that microfilming or scanning materials might be a destructive process. When I've told others about it they've been shocked, too. I agree with Nicholson when he says that a book is a historical artifact in itself, not just a "bowl of words".

Even though I enjoyed reading his deadpan incisiveness, though, Baker seemed almost gleefully critical at times, seeing conspiracy and malicious complicity when in many cases it's clear that well-intentioned peoples' real crime was only credulity and unquestioning conformity. I loved Baker's pithy closing with "Four Recommendations", but I wished he'd also made a call for more education. Toward the end of the book it seemed that the library world was waking from a bad dream, and I feel that the dream could have been shortened by more rigorous education in certain topics within LIS.