Understanding Digital Libraries & Double Fold

This weekend I finished "Understanding Digital Libraries" by Michael Lesk, and I am now halfway through "Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper" by Nicholson Baker. I feel like different readers could come away with different feelings of these two books depending on which is read first.

I found "Understanding Digital Libraries" to be a very informative objective analysis of the issues surrounding digital libraries, as well as a practical reference regarding some of the technology associated w digital libraries. I feel like I trust Mr. Lesk as an expert on the subject.

Now that I am into "Double Fold," I'm thinking...."whoa." Mr. Baker is so intense!!! I respect his passion and admire all that he is doing personally to preserve our world's history, but I can't help but feeling that his anger is misdirected and that his passion on the subject is keeping him from creating an objective analysis.

Just to reiterate - I agree with a lot of his points! If a historic newspaper can be maintained in it's original format, I don't believe it should be destroyed and converted to microfilm just to save space. I do believe libraries have been trusted w preserving this history of these documents and that responsibility shouldn't be taken lightly. But Mr. Baker seems to be accusing the entire community of library professionals of ignorancy, conspiracy and blatant disregard for valuable historic objects, and I just don't think that is accurate. Many of these librarians ARE just doing their jobs. They've been instructed by authority figures to convert these documents and educated by influential figures that newspaper is not durable and the only way to preserve the history is to microfilm. Many of these professionals truly believe they are doing the right thing and meeting their responsibility to maintain history for future generations. I know if I personally were taught the newspaper is bound to disintigrate, I would believe it...I'm certainly no paper scientist - why would I think other wise? Similarly, if I was instructed by the Director of Harvard libraries to microfilm collections of newspapers because that was in the best interest of the collection, I would also perform that request. The point I am trying to make is that while Mr. Baker may be correct that destroying these newspapers and converting all to microfilm is the correct way to proceed in all cases, I also believe that his assertation that there is a widespread assault on paper by librarians is inaccurate. I feel like readers who have not looked at other opinions on this matter could really get angry over Mr. Baker's emotional tirade against libraries, and miss the good intentions of many libraries in their efforts to digitize information for future readers.