Prepared by Paul Conway, Head of the Preservation Department, Yale University Library

Last week Random House published Nicholson Baker’s “Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper,” from which his earlier New Yorker article was taken. The title of the book refers to a common test for paper brittleness that involves repeatedly folding and creasing a paper sample until it breaks. Paper is described as brittle when it can endure only one or two back-and-forth folds without breaking. Writing “Double Fold” in an avowedly polemical manner, Mr. Baker challenges the view of brittle paper commonly taken in the library community. He is highly critical of libraries for preserving newspapers on microfilm and then discarding the originals. Mr. Baker also focuses his attention on the past, and sometimes present, practice of discarding brittle books and serials after microfilming or digital conversion.

“Double Fold” is receiving a lot of attention, including the cover story of the 15 April issue of the New York Times Book Review and a lengthy review essay by Robert Darnton in the 26 April issue of the New York Review of Books. Yale University Library is featured prominently in Mr. Baker’s book. The index lists at least 43 references to library staff or to research, projects, and practices carried out by the Preservation Department over a nearly 20 year period. Mr. Baker cites the extensive published record of the department as well as interviews he conducted during the course of his research.

Yale University Library has been a pioneer in the use of microfilm for preservation purposes and in the development of procedures for microfilming collections of books, journals, and newspapers on a large scale. Yale first microfilmed portions of its collections in 1931, shortly after moving into the Sterling Memorial Library. The Preservation Department was founded in 1971, in part to develop a comprehensive approach to preserving Yale’s collections, including conservation treatment, preservation microfilming, environmental controls in library stack areas, and active engagement with library staff and readers on appropriate care and handing routines. In the early 1980s, Gay Walker, with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, conducted the first large-scale assessment of collection condition in the United States. Ms. Walker’s survey tested over 35,000 volumes paper brittleness as well as a host of other problems, including failing bindings, split text blocks, and missing pages.

The Yale survey identified a genuine and massive preservation challenge for the library. One outcome of the study, but by no means the only important outcome, was the development of a grant-funded microfilming program that targeted library’s most damaged, most heavily used, and therefore most endangered collections. Beginning in 1983 and proceeding nearly to the present time, the Preservation Department has preserved on microfilm at least 5,000 volumes from the library’s collections every year. Until 1993, the common practice in the Preservation Department was to cut brittle volumes apart so that the pages could be placed flat under the microfilm camera. Books that could be opened nearly flat or that could bear the pressure of flattening under glass were not cut apart. A disbound brittle book rarely can be restored to usable condition. At least fifty percent of all books preserved on microfilm until 1993 were disbound and then withdrawn from the collections after staff inspected the microfilm for quality and completeness.

Since 1993, the practice of disbinding books prior to microfilm preservation has been drastically curtailed, but has not ceased altogether. In the Preservation Department, a brittle or broken book is targeted for microfilm because the book is unusable in its present state, cannot be repaired, and has seen little or no circulation in the past decade. Even with these selection criteria in place, preservation staff and the commercial microfilm vendors with whom we work make every effort to create a preservation microfilm copy without destroying the book. Books whose last use is under a microfilm camera are withdrawn from the collection and discarded. Books withdrawn from the Library’s collections after being preserved on microfilm are never sold or given away. Last year, the Library’s selectors authorized the withdrawal of about 600 of the 21,000 volumes that the Preservation Department handled.

The Preservation Department is deeply committed to protecting the artifactual value of Yale’s collections. In the past seven years, this commitment has taken the form of a three-fold increase in the capability of the Department to maintain printed books and journals in fit condition for use by readers. The Conservation Program, responsible for the treatment of the library’s rare and special collections, has grown from three to eight staff. The Collections Care Program, created in 1994, now consists of seven staff dedicated to the care of the library’s general circulating collection.

The publication of Nicholson Baker’s new book, “Double Fold,” is an opportunity to remind us of the value of Yale’s library collections. His book should also stimulate a conversation on the importance of choosing the right preservation strategies, including preservation microfilm, to address the very real preservation challenges that are with us for the foreseeable future. In preservation, as with other aspects of our library program, we are learning, revising, and improving how we work to benefit the collections and the readers we serve.